Ectoplasmic Secrets Rewritten
by Aquariuss
Summary: What if Sam and Tucker weren't there when The Accident happened? What if Danny never told them? What if there's far more going on in Amity Park than some unruly ghosts and a half ghost vigilante? -Nobody knows AU- Series of oneshots (kind of?)
1. Table of Contents

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Table of Contents_

 _Warning: Strong language, mild to moderate violence, injury, and abuse._

* * *

 **1) Contract**

 _Summary: The GIW have been funding the Fenton's research for years. Now they come to the scientists with a new offer and high hopes._

 **2) Trio**

 _Summary: Samantha Manson, eighth grader and loner, finds out maybe she doesn't have to be as alone in this world as she'd thought._

 **3) Meet My Crazy Family**

 _Summary: The trio hangs out afterschool at the Fenton household and it's Sam's first time meeting the infamous Fenton parents._

 **4) Summer's Nearing End**

 _Summary: There's just two weeks left until their first day of high school._

 **5) Foreboding Feelings**

 _Summary: The portal is almost finished. The agents at their house keep telling him it's going to change everything._

 **6) Hopeful Mothers**

 _Summary: Maddie and Angela share an afternoon together._

 **7) Failure**

 _Summary: It seemed like everything had been leading up to this moment, so how could they have failed?_

 **8) Death**

 _Summary: Danny hears someone, or something while home alone. It leads him to the basement._

 **9) What Am I**

 _Summary: From the instant he wakes up on the cold tile floor, he knows something is very, very wrong._

 **10) Surrounded**

 _Summary: This was indefinitely the most uncomfortable evening out he has ever experienced._

 **11) High School**

 _Summary: They'd all thought for the past years that the start of high school would be some big deal._

 **12) Mystery Meat**

 _Summary: A ghost attacks Casper High after being angered by a change the school has made._

 **13) Possession**

 _Summary: Danny accidentally figures out that the ability of possession came included in his package of ghostly attributes._

 **14) One of a Kind**

 _Summary: A ghost visits Amity Park after hearing rumors of the halfa who lives there._

 **15) Motive**

 _Summary: Greg Axel, director of the GIW is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure no one else will have to go through what he did._

 **16) Splitting Images**

 _Summary: The ghost of a deceased student from Casper High mistakes Danny for the typical high school bully and Dash for an innocent nerd._

 **17) The Cost**

 _Summary: It had been an average fight until one of its claws cut a little deeper than usual._

 **18) What You Want**

 _Summary: Tucker makes a wish._

 **19) Breaking Point**

 _Summary: Even the most quiet and polite girls have their breaking points. It's a good thing she has Paulina there to help put the pieces of herself back together._

 **20) Bitter Reunions**

 _Summary: Vlad Master's original intentions with hosting the college reunion party had been nothing pretty._

 **21) K**

 _Summary: Agent K had grown a soft spot for both the Fenton children over the years._

 **22) Prisoners of Love**

 _Summary: When Jack's anniversary gift to Maddie gets knocked into the Ghost Zone, Danny decides to go look for it._

 **23) Trap**

 _Summary: Danny is out in the streets late one night and ends up in a rather sticky situation._

 **24) Fanning the Flames**

 _Summary: A young and ambitious ghost rock star comes to town._

 **25) Closet**

 _Summary: Valerie sneaks out to go to an A List party and ends up in a game of spin the bottle._

 **26) My Brother's Keeper**

 _Summary: Jazz is beginning to notice something is off about her brother._

 **27) Alone**

 _Summary: Sam gets caught alone at night when ecto activity is high in the city._

 **28) Shades of Gray**

 _Summary: Valerie's life has just been one unfortunate thing after the next and the cause is always ghosts._

 **29) Lonely Guy Cat**

 _Summary: Vlad finds a feline friend to help him with the highly illegal acts he does in his secret lab and the plotting for world domination._

 **30) Teacher of the Year**

 _Summary: Danny's parents and teachers are beginning to worry about the path he's going down._

 **31) Nerd Gang**

 _Summary: Mikey, Nathan, and Lester find trouble they weren't looking for and get some unexpected help._

 **32) 13**

 _Summary: Jazz is falling head over heels for a guy she's just met._

 **33) The Reporter**

 _Summary: Lance Thunder wishes he had a different job._

 **34) Public Enemies**

 _Summary: Walker comes to Amity Park looking for revenge._

 **35) Inspiration**

 _Summary: Dash is having a tough week until Kwan helps him find the motivation he needs._

 **36) Maternal Instincts**

 _Summary: Danny is unwillingly brought along on a trip with his mom to a science convention._

 **37) Blackout**

 _Summary: The mayor of Amity keeps hearing everyone tell him about how Phantom had kidnapped him, but why can't he remember it ever happening?_

 **38) Life Lessons**

 _Summary: Valerie and Danny are forced to work together both as civilians, and their alter egos._

 **39) Sunday Dinner**

 _Summary: Jack invites Vlad over for dinner much to Danny and Maddie's displeasure. Jazz is just confused._

 **40) Control Freaks**

 _Summary: Circus Gothic rolls into town and Sam realizes things aren't actually how they seem._

 **41) To be announced!**


	2. Contract

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Contract_

 _Summary:_ The GIW have been funding the Fenton's research for years. Now they come to the scientists with a new offer and high hopes.

* * *

It was a calm Friday evening in Amity Park, something that was growing increasingly rare in the ghost infested city. Roads were busy and there was plenty of traffic, especially downtown on 83rd avenue where most of the city's entertainment was located. In this section of town, all huddled together was a movie theater, a couple of hotels, some gift shops, and a whole lot of restaurants ranging from a Nasty Burger to formal dress places with overpriced food.

One restaurant in particular that happened to be much closer to the formal end of that scale, was packed full of people, as was expected for a Friday night, with every table occupied. Tables filled the center of the room and comfortable looking booths lined two of the walls. The lights were dimmed and a few sparkling chandeliers hung overhead. Waiters and waitresses circled around taking orders for food and drinks.

In the corner booth where it was the most enclosed, sat a group of four, two men and two women. They were engaged in a rather serious conversation over some drinks and an appetizer. All four were dressed relatively formally and for the most part held the same business-like expression. On one side of the booth there was a bald man wearing a suit and tinted glasses. Beside him sat a stern looking middle-aged woman with her dark brown hair pulled back in an up do. She was wearing a very sophisticated black, floor length dress. Both had fairly tanned skin and possessed a certain atmosphere that almost warned people of their presence. Across from them sat a livelier looking couple, a broad-shouldered man with dark, graying hair wearing a more casual suit and tie, and a redheaded woman wearing a simple dark green dress.

The woman, Madeline Fenton, took a sip of her drink. She'd been nervous about this dinner ever since their "friends in the business" had invited them the week before. It wasn't often that Jack and Maddie met with GIW executives, which made it even more nerve wracking on the odd occasions when they did. Maddie had made sure Jack and herself had been looking their best when they left the house earlier that evening. This meeting could mean everything to them, and they knew it had to go well The GIW had been funding the majority of the Fenton's paranormal research the past many years and they definitely couldn't allow themselves to lose those funds now that they had two kids to support as well.

Jack had been more than optimistic about the meeting going into it than Maddie. He didn't see it as anything to worry about since the GIW honestly hadn't shown any signs of wanting to stop their funds. In fact, they've even recently picked it up a bit, which was understandable with the way spectral activity had been increasing.

"We trust you've both noticed that the amount of activity has gone up recently?" the woman, Sierra Hunt asked.

Maddie nodded, "Yes, we noticed the rate increased around .6% since the 3rd."

"And .7 in the last week. That's why we've just been given permission to carry out an idea that was proposed a while back, and also why we've asked the two of you to join us here tonight." Sierra continued when both of the Fentons looked at her curiously, "We have a new business pitch for you both, one we believe you'll like."

"What do you need us to make? More modern weapons? Upgraded defense systems?" Jack asked.

"No, not this time. This idea was sparked by something we found out you were both working on back at the University of Wisconsin."

"A lot of things happened in Wisconsin, which is it you're referring to?"

Sierra temporarily ignored the last question and continued, "Before we get into the actual project we'd like you to know that _if_ you both agree to this, it will become a project of combined efforts. A team of top rated government ectologists and engineers will be assigned to collaborate with you, and every resource you'll need will be directly provided for by the GIW. You'll also _both_ be given a yearly salary of 120k, a 240k household income, and if the project is successful, we'll allow you both to keep your salary, continuing your work officially under the GIW."

Before either could cut in, Sierra also added, "And by that we mean, you'll still be able to do your own research and still receive funds for it, however, to keep the salary, you'd have to be able to work on GIW missions and plans alongside your regular work as an ectologist."

Maddie processed the hoard of information she was given. _She said whatever this project is, that it was inspired by something Jack and I did in college? The two of us worked on a lot of things there, Vlad as well, but which one could she mean? The project must be something massive if we'd be getting a team of scientists and engineers to aid…and that salary…damn. That's a nice income right there, and to be making that much while doing something like what we'd probably be doing anyways…_

Jack beat Maddie to the big question that was on both their minds, "Wowie, that's a pretty generous offer. So, what's this project?"

The other man, Agent K, also known to some as John Kelvin, pulled out a file from his white briefcase and slid it across the table so it lay, unopened, before the Fentons. Jack moved his drink out of the way as his wife slowly opened the file. As the couple looked briefly through it, they were both shocked.

"You're asking us to build a _larger_ portal?" Maddie half whispered.

Sierra leaned in a little closer, "Think of the possibilities Madeline. _This_ could be the key to finally winning the war against ghosts. If we have access to _their world_ , we may _finally_ have some leverage over them."

Jack took the liberty to cut in, "That's all well and good, but gee… I don't know. Back in college we couldn't even get the Viewing Portal to work- my best friend, Vladdie, he got hurt pretty bad while we were working on it too." Maddie nodded, "Right, building a bigger one would just be even more hazardous."

"Proper precautions will be taken, much more than I'm sure you had in that _college_ lab." John said.

"No matter how many precautions are taken, this can still go horribly wrong." Maddie argued.

"Things could go wrong in any experiment." Sierra said.

Maddie paused. _It's true_ , she thought, _that's one thing I've always relished about being a scientist. Taking risks to make greater discoveries._ Jack and Maddie shared a look with each other before Jack asked the two government workers, "Can we take some time to think things over?" Sierra nodded, "Of course. Take the file home, read through it together, you know how to reach us when you decide." Maddie put on a small smile and thanked them.

"Just remember, this could be _groundbreaking_. If it all works out, our children, our grandchildren and many more generations after can all live on a more peaceful Earth than the one we do. Most people who know about this project, myself included, that _this_ is the key we've been looking for." The Fentons allowed Sierra's words to sink in. Quite honestly, it left the both of them feeling like some of their hope was renewed in this ongoing fight.

Jack knew for a fact he wanted nothing more than to stop hearing constant news stories of people being hurt, or unfortunately, occasionally even killed because of ghost attacks. Too many people were getting hurt and not enough was being done about it. Even with all the technology they've developed over the years, no ghost hunting organization had any sort of _real_ advantage over ghosts.

Maddie, like her husband, hated when she saw someone get hurt because of one filthy pest, but she was also afraid. She was afraid that someday, if this problem didn't get fixed soon, she'd see one of her precious babies get hurt, and she couldn't bear to let that happen.

The party's waiter chose that moment to return with the food they had all previously ordered. From then on the topic of conversation slowly drifted into something more casual and before they knew it, they were watching the check be paid for by the two government agents who had originally invited them. The group said their polite goodbyes to each other before parting ways, two getting picked up in a expensive white car with tinted windows, and the other two leaving in the minivan they often used when there wasn't any kind of emergency or ghost attack. _What, did you think they drove a big, hulking RV around everywhere they went?_

When the couple arrived home they found their house surprisingly just as clean as when they left it. _Angela's just so good with the kids like that_ , Maddie thought. Thankfully her friend had been able to babysit Danny and Jazz, seeing how Angela's husband Maurice had promised to take their seven (almost eight) year old son, Tucker, to see some new superhero movie tonight (something Angela hadn't been to keen on going to see). So, while the two boys of the Foley household were out this evening, she had been given an excuse to not go with them this time by opting to babysit for her closest friend.

Looking up from the couch where she'd been reading a book Angela greeted the couple, "How'd it go?"

"It was good, we've got some things to think over and read through but…I think we're going to start earning our own salary" Maddie summed up.

Angela's eyes lit up, "Really?! That's great girl, congratulations! Added with what you been making on selling some of those inventions of yours, you're gonna be pretty well off." Jack then replied, "Yeah, well, pay or not I don't think that's why we're considering this job."

"This might be a huge step towards getting rid of the ghosts always attacking this town." Maddie added to clarify.

"Well hallelujah! That's even better news!" Maddie smiled brightly, "It is, thanks Ang. So, how were the kids?"

"Oh they were a couple of little angels. We played a couple games then they both went to bed about an hour ago without putting up too much of a fight about it." Then she said more quietly to Maddie, "Girl, you're raising some good kids." Maddie felt warm with pride, "Thanks so much for watching them." Angela waved her hand, "Anytime."

After that they talked only a little while longer before Angela decided she'd get going. Jack and Maddie checked in on their two kids before settling down on the couch with the file. They spent the rest of the night reading through all of it, analyzing every expense, required materials, all the people's names who were involved, and every last detail they could find. They finally came to a decision around three in the morning.

They would build this portal. They would make it work. And they would use it to their advantage in this endless struggle against ghosts.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you for reading!**

 **I am now on winter break, half way through my senior year of high school, so I'm going to have more time for these next few weeks to work on this.**

 **If you're here and were a reader on the original Ectoplasmic Secrets, yes, this chapter and the next few are going to be almost directly from there, although I am editing and changing and adding some things even on these. I promise, I know where I want to go with this one, and have a more clear and focused plan.**

 **Again, thanks for reading! Feel free to drop a review, lemme know what you think, if you're a new reader or here from the original, etc.**


	3. Trio

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Trio_

Summary: Samantha Manson, eighth grader and loner, finds out maybe she doesn't have to be as alone in this world as she'd thought.

* * *

A warm August breeze blew softly across a wide field behind the place commonly known as Iron Oak Elementary, one of Amity Park's better public schools. It was recess time for all the 8th graders, which meant a large variety of things were taking place, however, one girl particular chose to sit alone on the very far side of the field, beneath an old oak tree. Munching on some sunflower seeds, she observed everything going on in her sight.

In the east were the basketball and volleyball courts where, much to Sam's disgust, she saw Paulina with all her preppy little friends playing a game of volleyball. She watched them for about a minute until she heard Paulina scream about her hair being messed up, _and…que eye roll and groan of annoyance and disgust,_ she thought bitterly. Moving on to observe the game of basketball, Sam spotted a kid from her class, _Wesley, right? Or don't people call him Wes? Whatever, I don't really care._ She watched as he threw a pretty good shot from the three point line and was soon after congratulated by his teammates.

She was distracted by a loud yell and she turned to see the school's biggest jerkface running to retrieve a rogue football that had flown off the wrong way due to a crappy pass. On his way, he accidentally _(but was it truly an accident?)_ , bumped into another kid with darker skin and a red beret. The two weren't that far from her so Sam heard the kid yell for Dash to watch it. _Ouch. That was a bad move._

Just as Sam had mentally predicted, Dash didn't take well to retaliation. "Why don't _you_ watch it, nerd!" Dash yelled back angrily, turning around and taking a step closer to the kid so they were just two feet from each other. "Yeah, man, when _you_ realize the world doesn't revolve around you." the kid shot back. _Oh shit,_ Sam thought, _is that guy suicidal or something? The hell is he doing? I mean it's great that someone's finally standing up to Dash, but shouldn't one's own safety come first in the mind of a teenage boy?_

Dash was red with rage as he moved to either grab or shove the kid down when another surprisingly brave soul cut in, stepping between the two. "Dash stop it. J-just leave him alone, he didn't do anything to you."

 _What is this? Two people standing up to Dash Bastard in one day?_ Sam kept watching safely from the cover of the old oak tree as Dash made his move and gripped the collar of the other kid's shirt. "And the little geek comes to the rescue... Well now who's gonna save _you Fenturd_?"

Sam winced a bit as Dash punched the kid, causing him to stumble to the ground. Dash turned away and was joined by his friend, Kwan, but as the two were leaving he taunted one last time, "Why don't you run home crying to your freaky parents now, huh Fenturd?!" Sam sneered in their direction as Kwan laughed along with Dash as they returned to the football game. _That son of a bitch._

She saw as the first kid helped his friend up, "C'mon dude, let's go get an ice pack for that." Sam realized it was probably a good time to see if that guy was ok, _after all, Dash's punches can be pretty brutal. Mikey learned that last year when he ended up with a concussion. He's lucky Dash wasn't actually real upset with him, otherwise it might've ended in more than just one hit._ She looked at the two walking slowly in the direction of the nurse's office and was about to run after them when the bell rang. Making a quick mental decision, Sam closed her bag of sunflower seeds and headed back to her homeroom class…

Standing in the school nurse's office Tucker tapped his foot anxiously on the tile floor. He hated _any_ office that screamed "MEDICAL" with syringes and the smell of sick people, which was rather ironic, seeing as _his own mother_ was a doctor at the local hospital. However, this time he was there for Danny, his best friend since they could crawl.

The nurse handed Danny an ice pack just as another student, a girl Tucker never remembered meeting before, walked in and crept invisibly along the side of the room. "What happened?" the nurse asked. Danny hesitated a moment, "…uuuhhh I ju- I just tripped and…and kind of ran into…um…a light post." Tucker had to suppress a snicker at how horrible his friend was at lying.

Somehow, the nurse accepted Danny's drawn out, stuttering mess of an explanation and moved on to ask the other girl that had come in what she needed. Tucker looked as she rubbed near the bridge of her nose, "I've got a terrible headache, could I maybe have a Tylenol?" The nurse nodded in understanding. "Of course. Let me see here…" she rummaged through one the drawer before closing it and getting up, "I'll be right back." The nurse left the room and Tucker watched as the girl sat down, put her earbuds in, and turned up the volume loud enough for him to hear six feet away. He quirked an eyebrow and just starred for a while. When she finally noticed the weird long, weird look Tucker was giving her, she turned down the volume, "What?"

"Didn't you _just_ say you had a huge headache? Last I checked, blasting music in your ears doesn't cure a headache." Tucker said, "Not that I'm _against_ blasting music in your ears..."

Sam shrugged, "I lied. Actually, just thought I'd check up on Dash's latest victim." In the background Danny groaned, "Augh…you saw that?"

Sam smirked, "Mhmm. Why'd you lie?" Danny's expression remained blank so Sam continued, "To the nurse. Why'd you lie?"

There was a beat of silence and Danny opened his mouth to respond right when the nurse came back into the room. Sam motioned for him to wait as the lady gave her a Tylenol. "Well, we should probably be getting back to class now, thanks!" she said as she left the little office followed soon after by the two boys. The three of them started walking down the hall and as soon as they passed a trash can, Sam threw the pill away.

She refused to let either of them get away without an answer to her previous question, so she pursued it again. "It's kinda pointless to report Dash." The guy's friend joined in, "Yeah, no matter how many times its happened, or how severe it gets, Dash just always wriggles out of any detention."

This, of course, wasn't all that new of information to Sam, "Real spoiled jack ass, isn't he? Probably just been using his upper class status to get everything _his_ way his whole life." With a second thought she added, "Just like _most_ rich people do."

Tucker seized the moment to add his two cents, "Hey, not _everyone_ who's loaded is a spoiled brat." And he should know, his mother is a doctor and a surgeon when needed. Tucker didn't think _he_ turned out to bad. Although to be honest he supposed they weren't exactly in the most comfortable financial situation, student loans can be a bitch after all. _But hell, Danny's parents are inventors for the frickin GIW and none of them act rich._

Sam laughed at Tucker's comment and added somewhat mysteriously, "Oh trust me, I know." The trio reached the end of the hall and Sam went to take a left turn. "Where're you going? Our classes are this way." Danny asked, pointing down the hall to the right with one hand, the other hand still holding the ice pack to the side of his face. "Not if you wanna take the _long_ way to class…" she smirked a little as the two shrugged and followed her to the left.

Sam pulled out her phone for a second to change the song that had been playing through her earbuds when Tucker caught sight of the screen over her shoulder. He gasped loudly, "NO WAY!" he nearly _shrieked_ excitedly before moving to examine the device in Sam's hand from every angle he could. "What...?" she asked in a low, unimpressed tone.

"He's either geeking out over the fact that you, like us, listen to Dumpty Humpty. Or, more likely, he's totally infatuated by your phone." Danny explained.

"You have the latest model of the Pear 4?! How'd you get it?! I _preordered_ and it hasn't come yet!" Tucker was nearly hysterical at this point, not daring to take his eyes off the beautiful piece of technology.

Sam, however, paid no attention and instead focused on something else, "Wait, hold up, you guys like Dumpty Humpty?!"

"They're our favorite band." Danny said, "Well, Tuck claims he like Daft Punk more but that's only because of that one song they have." Sam laughed, "So, he's like a _total_ techno geek?" Danny answered after seeing his friend was still too caught up in the phone that Sam had at this point just handed to him, "Yup. He won the Amity Park computer hacking competition when he was ten."

Tucker, hearing this, looked up and added, "You're damn right I did."

For the following minutes the three of them continued wandering through the halls, talking about whatever could possibly present itself as relevant.

Eventually they turned one more corner and the trio found they'd unfortunately already made it back to the 8th grade classrooms. _Time really does fly when you're having fun._ Sam laughed slightly, "I'm going to be perfectly honest here, I don't know either of your names."

"Well then, allow me to introduce myself, _I_ am Tucker Foley, or TF as in Too Fine. And this fellow geek right here is Danny Fenton, the single person with the most bizarre family you will ever find here in Amity Park." Danny rolled his eyes slightly at his friend. "And you, goth girl? Are you really a goth though? You seem like you smile too much to _actually_ be goth. Just saying."

"Sam. Sam Manson. Call me Samantha and I'll give you a black eye worse than Dash's. I'm a goth only in the sense that I wear black all the time and can be _hella_ edgy when I feel like it."

The other two laughed and were just about to go their separate ways, having missed at least twenty minutes of class at this point. "Are you sure you're eye's ok?" Danny shifted the ice pack, "Ye-yeah, thanks. You know, you didn't have to…" Sam smiled a little, "Well I'm sorta glad I did…" there was a bit of an awkward silence when none of them knew what to say.

"So…I'll see you guys tomorrow then?" Sam asked. Danny gave a slightly lopsided smile, "Definitely."

When she was at home later that evening Sam thought about the day's events. Those two…they seemed…genuine. She didn't think there was anyone _left_ like that…

6th grade had been the worst year of her life. That's when people changed. _That_ is when everyone went from being cool with most everyone else in the grade, to forming their little cliques and social groups. _That's_ when everyone's peers' worth suddenly became determined by social class.

 _And THAT is when people who used to be good friends with you, END UP DITCHING YOU!_ Sam was fuming and her hands clenched into fists. A few tears threatened to drip from her eyes, but she fought hard against them. "I'm talking to _you_ , Paulina." She took a shaky breath, "You used to be so cool to hang out with…what happened to you…to fall so low?"

Rage coursed through her and she suddenly found herself chucking her pencil across her dark room. It hit the wall with a clang as Sam's anger fled her, replaced by a wave of sadness. She willed herself to not let a single tear fall. _That's all in the past now,_ she thought to herself, _it's time to just move on. Paulina's not worth my tears._

Sam took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. She hated it when she got herself all worked up like this over nothing. She climbed up onto her bed, leaving her homework abandoned on the floor. The TV flickered to life and she saw the channel was still on the GEBS (Ghost Emergency Broadcasting System) where they were currently rerunning an interview from a few weeks ago with two ectologists.

" _So, Mr and Mrs Fenton, do you have anything to add on the recent rise in actvi…"_

Sam got lost in her thoughts for a moment, _something…I'm missing something…why is this so familiar suddenly…?_

" _Of course, as a parent myself I definitely understand the concerns they have for their children. We will not deny that ghosts have been a rising threat for years and we will not deny that they can be dangerous- very dangerous. However, we are working to protect the public. As you probably know, it is now legal here in Amity Park to carry a small ecto weapon. We're also working on getting schools here to offer a half semester class to all students so they'll be more educated on these threats and know how to protect themselves if they ever need to."_

" _Alright, we're going to go to a quick break here, but stick around! Because when we come back we'll be asking the Fentons how ordinary people like you and I can learn how to use an ectogun so that we can all be a little safer from the supernatural."_

As the commercials came on Sam sat and thought for a moment. When it finally hit her she felt like an idiot for not having pieced it together earlier at school.

"Fenton, huh. Well I guess that makes some sense."

As she sat and continued to watch the rest of the interview Sam pondered what it must be like to live in a family of world renown ghost hunters.

* * *

 **A/N: Stay tuned, I'm going to be posting multiple chapters over the next few days to get caught up, since most of these early chapters are coming right from the old Ectoplasmic Secrets. I am editing them before reposting them here, so that's the only slight hold up.**

 **Thank you for reading! Feel free to drop a review if you have some time! :)**


	4. Meet My Crazy Family

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Meet My Crazy Family_

Summary: The trio hangs out afterschool at the Fenton household and it's Sam's first time meeting the infamous Fenton parents.

* * *

It was just past three o'clock on a school day in mid fall. Loads of students could be seen crossing the street from the elementary school, heading towards the residential area of the town. One such group consisted of three eighth graders as they began their walk to the farthest edge of the neighborhood where one would start to see some stores and smaller shops nearby.

"So it just occurred to me that this is the first time I'll have actually been to your house." Sam began, sounding borderline cheery in comparison to her rather dark taste in apparel. "I mean, we usually just go to Tuck's place. Not that I'm complaining," she added, turning to Tucker, "your mom is an awesome cook. Plus, she's always remembered about my vegetarian diet, which is pretty considerate compared to my own parents."

Tucker mumbled something about meat under his breath before finally tearing his eyes off his phone for the first time since they'd left the school grounds. "That's cause when we go to my place, we don't have to worry about the basement causing some sort of nuclear explosion." he pointed out.

"Ok, I know they've got some pretty crazy stuff down there, but I don't think they'd actually have anything too radioactive or explosive." Danny said, but after thinking a moment he also added, "…at least I hope not."

Sam scuffed the heels of her boots on the dull sidewalk as they walked. She wouldn't admit it, but she was really curious to see what the rest of the Fentons were actually like. After all, the name was known throughout pretty much all of Amity Park and even through ghost hunting organizations worldwide.

As the trio turned another corner, they were greeted by a row of about a dozen houses facing a small field on the other side of the street with a couple little trees covered in red, yellow, and brown leaves.

After a short silence Danny had decided to ask, "Are you guys sure you want to work on the project at my place? It's just that…it can be kind of loud sometimes. And distracting."

Sam glanced back at Tucker to find he was, as per usual, typing away on his phone. He must not have had to think too hard about whatever he was doing because he apparently heard and replied to Danny, "My Ma's got work friends over, and _she_ " he nodded towards Sam, "said she doesn't like being at her place."

 _He's got that right,_ she thought. What, with her overbearing, pompous mother scrutinizing everything she does and says and wears. _Not to mention that I never really told either of them I'm pretty loaded._ If they saw the kind of house, _scratch that, mansion_ her and her family lived in…

Danny shrugged, "We could always go to the library or something." Sam swiftly caught on to what he was trying to do, "Danny, the library is another twenty minute walk in the complete opposite direction. Besides, what does some noise matter? We're always blasting some Dumpty Humpty album while we do homework and stuff anyways." Danny just sighed as they continued walking, "Don't say I didn't warn you…"

As they kept walking, Tucker began talking about the new Doomed update, rambling on about which characters got the best new skins, weapons, and whatnot. Sam listened for about a minute when her attention was stolen away by a single wet drop hitting the bridge of her nose. She wiped it away roughly and turned to look up to the sky. The gray clouds were thickening and she could tell there were some even darker clouds headed in their way if the winds' direction had anything to do with it.

 _Oh well, a little rain never killed anyone. I'll still be able to walk home later,_ she thought to herself. However, it seemed karma had it out for her today as just a moment later the three of them could clearly hear the roll of thunder off in the distance.

"Yes! Man, I love thunderstorms!" Tucker seemed to be the only one perked up by the sudden change in weather. "Yeah? How about being outside in them?" Sam asked in a low tone. Tucker just shrugged, "Hey, I'll live so long as I've got this nice waterproof case right-"

Tucker had taken off one shoulder strap of his backpack and had it pulled around in front of himself. He unzipped it and began rummaging through his stuff, becoming increasingly panicked. "Shit! I left it at home today! C'mon Danny, bro we've gotta run for it!" Danny groaned a little in response, "Tuck, your phone will be fine. The storm isn't even here yet and we're almost there anyways."

Tucker grumbled something about not having any respect for his baby Charlotte and proceeded to pull open a weather radar app on his phone. "According to this, it's supposed to start raining any minute now."

As if on cue, the sidewalks began to appear littered with small raindrops and a distant flash in the sky was all the motivation the trio needed to pick up the pace a bit.

Tucker quickly held his phone close to his chest and wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to keep it dry. Both Sam and Danny went to pull the hoods of their jackets up, although it did little to help. Within just minutes the once small droplets of water morphed into a heavy rainfall. Combined with the wind, the sound of raindrops hammering the rooftops, sidewalks, and streets became loud enough that the trio had to yell just to hear each other.

"Well this was sudden!" Danny yelled, nearly getting cut off by another bout of thunder. Sam pulled her black hood farther over her head, "Duh, that's mother nature for you!" She crossed her arms and looked ahead where, even through the thick layer of rain, she could see the neon sign reading _Fenton Works. Yep. Real subtle there._

By the time they were in front of the… _house?_...Sam was able to see the rest of it. The somewhat old fashioned red brick, the tall, narrow windows, _the fucking UFO with probably close to fifty satellite dishes on it!_ As they walked up the steps to hide under the porch from the rain, Sam could practically feel the electric buzz radiating from the neon sign above.

The three of them stood, huddled on the porch and Danny grabbed his keys out from his backpack. Sam took to observing the storm, trying to ignore the few shivers that ran through her. _As if it wasn't already cool outside, being drenched from head to toe isn't really helping._ Her eyes caught sight of a lightning bolt as Danny was fiddling with his keys, trying to find the right one. Apparently, it had been closer than it appeared because the resounding boom was nearly deafening and practically shook the air itself. Sam couldn't control the flinch she let slip from the way her heart had skipped a beat, but seemingly she wasn't alone as Tucker had taken to swearing loudly and Danny had dropped his keys again.

It was a bit of a miracle when Danny had finally gotten the door open, _seriously_ , Sam had considered just hitting the doorbell. The three of them at last rushed inside to be greeted by much warmer, dryer air.

The first thing that registered in Sam's mind was that everything was so shockingly, well, _normal_. A _normal_ living room with a couch, armchair, and TV. A _normal_ open, eat-in kitchen. A _normal_ staircase leading to the second story. And a _normal_ \- _wait, nope that's not normal._ Sam glanced over the strange door with multiple heavy duty locks and red warnings all over it, quickly coming to the assumption that that must lead to their lab.

A middle-aged woman with short red hair came down the stairs just then, carrying a basket of laundry. She noticed the trio standing by the door after a moment, "Oh there you kids are! I was just about to call to see if you needed a ride home because of this storm that just decided to come in. So how was school today?"

"Boring as always!" Danny yelled from the kitchen where he'd began just collecting whatever good snacks he could find in the pantry. When he couldn't hold anymore he tossed some to Tucker, who gladly accepted. "And when were you going to introduce me to your new friend here?" Danny closed the pantry door and came back in the other room again, carrying an armful of snacks, "Oh, right, Mom, this is Sam. Sam, this is my mom."

Tucker began going upstairs carrying some of the snacks and his backpack. "Oh, so _this_ is the Sam I've heard so much about!" Danny's Mom said. Sam felt her cheeks get a little hotter, _oh god, am I blushing? Why though? That's just cringy. And awkward. It better not be noticeable._

"-OKAY we'll be upstairs working on a school project for the next few hours if you need us!" Danny exclaimed as he went to follow Tucker up the stairs. Just before following her friends upstairs Sam stopped for a moment, "It's nice to finally meet you Mrs. Fenton, or, sorry but do you go by Doctor?"

She smiled, "Please, just 'Maddie' is fine. And it's nice to meet you too Sam."

When Sam made it to the top of the stairs it wasn't hard to find Danny's room, just the first door to the left. She entered and found it was actually pretty close to what she would've expected. Light blue walls, random posters littering the walls, little star stickers all over the ceiling that looked to have been there for at least ten years, and overall fairly messy. Yep. That's typical Danny.

Out the window Sam could see the storm was raging, with frequent flashes of light and the wind and rain beating against the window. Inside, Tucker had pulled out the papers for their school project and scattered them across the floor. All the snacks the two had carried up were also strewn about.

"So, your mom seems pretty nice" Sam commented offhandedly. To her surprise it was Tucker that answered, "That's because she was in her "Mom Mode" when you met her. When she gets into her "Ectologist/Ghost Hunter Mode" she can be pretty damn scary. Makes me glad I'm not a ghost."

Of course, Tucker didn't mean it too seriously-not in this time, at least- so, the three of them shared some laughs. Sam took off her jacket that had been soaked in the rain and sat down on the floor. After popping a few grapes in her mouth, they started on their group project…

…and two and a half hours later they didn't have nearly as much as they should've had done. The time had unintentionally been used more for talking and joking, watching stupid videos online and attempting to hack Dash Baxter's Instagram than actually getting any schoolwork done. Not that any of them had really expected anything more from themselves. The project wasn't due for another week and a half so they didn't care to worry too much about it at the moment.

By now it was nearly dark outside and it seemed the storm still hadn't let up. A door opened downstairs followed by a loud, "Pizza's here!". About ten minutes earlier Maddie had announced she was going to pick up a pizza for dinner and had asked everyone what toppings they liked.

"Finally! I'm starving!" Tucker exclaimed, throwing his hands up for emphasis. Danny chuckled a little, "Dude, didn't you just eat like that entire bag of chips?" Tucker glanced at the empty bag of Tostitos, "There's no protein in those. Which is why I'm looking forward to that pepperoni-sausage slice of pizza." He said and promptly got up to head downstairs. Sam followed suit, "And _I_ am looking forward to that pineapple-spinach slice."

Downstairs in the kitchen Sam finally got to meet Jack and Jazz Fenton who had been downstairs in the lab and in their room reading respectively. Jack, in Sam's eyes, was everything her own father was not. Friendly, loud, and boisterous. Jazz reminded Sam a lot more of her own parents, but she still definitely seemed a lot kinder than them.

As they all began to finish their slices and the leftovers were put away, Jack suggested something that would soon change much of how Sam thought.

"So, do you kids want to see what we've been working on recently?"

Jazz picked up a few textbooks off the counter and headed towards the stairs, "Not me, I've got homework to do that's due next week."

Danny was about to come up with an excuse for the three of them when Tucker came in, "And have the chance to see some _brand_ _new_ Fenton Tech? Heck yeah!" Danny barely resisted the urge to facepalm as the trio found themselves getting whisked away to the lab.

Sam found that she had to fight not to gape at the lab they'd just entered. Everything looked to be cutting edge technology. _The top_ of the line. Half the stuff she saw in there, she didn't even know was possible yet. There was nearly one whole wall that was covered in various sleek looking models of different ectoguns. On the other side of the room were a few counter spaces full of notes, beakers, and test tubes. However, despite how interesting these other things may look, there was really _one_ thing that truly stole Sam's attention.

There was a rather large hole on the back wall where loads of wires were twisting around in every direction inside it. Looking closely one could also see a multitude of small flashing lights lining the walls, ceiling and floor of it. All in all, it looked like something straight out of some crazy sci fi movie.

"Okay… _wow_ …" Sam said breathlessly, finally admitting defeat in that she couldn't deny this was pretty cool. Neither Jack nor Maddie seemed to take much notice of the goth's astonishment and instead waved the three over to where Jack was holding a small device.

"This baby right here is our newest model of the Portable Ecto-Detector. It can tell you where any rank ghost within a mile radius of you is _and_ give you an approximation of its ranking." Jack said, showing off a handheld device with some unidentifiable buttons, a screen and a funky looking antenna.

"I thought you already had something to do that." Danny said, not sounding so impressed. Jack didn't hesitate even a moment, "Oh we do! But you see son, we've been using the satellites on the op's center to locate ghosts around the city in the past. Now with _this_ ," he gestured to the machine, "We can find them from anywhere in the city!" Maddie chose that moment to add, "So now when we're going after a ghost, we can both go and help each other out, instead of one of us having to stay here to keep tracking its location."

Tucker was practically drooling over the device at this point, "How does it work? Atmospheric testing? Energy wave detection?!"

"All good ideas, but not exactly. It uses a type of sonar using a very specific wavelength only affected by ectoplasmic properties." Jack said.

Tucker's jaw dropped even further, " _Sweet…"_

"Exactly. We're still working out some of the bugs, but using this entity we've been able to get most of the major programming done." Maddie said gesturing to- _oh my god I didn't even see there was a ghost sitting there,_ Sam thought.

It was a tiny little thing really, barely holding onto any sort of form. It looked more like a floating glob of glowing green jelly with eyes and a mouth. it was contained within a clear cube sitting on the counter and as he floated around within the box Sam noticed he appeared almost like he was limping, if that was even possible. _Poor little guy…_

"Yes, it looks like we might have to file a request for a new test subject from the GIW. This one doesn't look like it will last much longer." Maddie said casually.

"So…you're gonna release this guy back into the Ghost Zone to heal, right?" Sam asked hesitantly. The way Maddie had talked about him…there was something unsettling about it to Sam, which was further confirmed by Maddie's next response.

She chuckled a bit, "Oh, Sam…well it's good to know you're a sensitive type of person-" _Wait, what? What is she talking about?_ "-But really, you should know that these creatures, they aren't like people. They're imitations, mirror images even, of past life. They can't feel any real pain, only create illusions of a response to it."

Sam's mind was scattered. Here she was, listening to one of the world's leading ghost hunters and ectologists, spewing out facts about the beings that invaded their town on a daily basis, and all she could remember was that night.

 _A child ghost had been spotted in the mall. Sam was nine years old at the time, with her parents and Grandma Ida at the mall. She remembered seeing some people in suits running past, pulling out shiny silver guns, running down the escalator. She remembered seeing the ghost twisted up and caught in some special net. She remembered seeing a face so similar to her own, yet so different as their features were twisted into a horror filled shock. She remembered she saw the first agent fire their gun. She remembered the pain filled screams that echoed throughout the entirety of the mall as her parents forcefully dragged her away from the scene._

"So you're just gonna let him die just because he can't feel it?" Sam eventually asked, still watching the little glob creature limp around in the air. "Well, you see it can't truly die seeing as it's not even alive in the first place. It will fade out of existence, but die? Not possible." Maddie said with an almost eerie sense of calm.

There was a short silence during which Sam could feel the eyes of her two best friends on her. Another bolt of lightning struck nearby and the thunder practically shook the whole house. A few of the lights flickered for a fraction of a second, however, most of the ones in the basement stayed steady. After a thousand thoughts ran through her head, Sam came to a bit of a realization and her amethyst eyes narrowed slightly.

Her two friends seemed to have caught on because not a moment later they were making up excuses for the three of them to go back upstairs. They didn't talk about what happened. Not that day.

Sam found herself distracted the rest of the evening. She couldn't focus on anything else. Not the game of Doomed they'd decided to play for a while, not when she got a ride back home, not even as she found herself sitting alone in her room with only the sound of the storm outside to comfort her.

The next day at school she nearly got caught on her phone five times, which wasn't that usual of behavior for her. She couldn't focus on any lessons that day, she just needed answers. During class, at lunch, and all through recess Sam scrolled through webpage after webpage only to find herself becoming more and more disgusted by people she'd originally been told were geniuses and heroes.

By the end of that week her view of ghost hunters had shifted entirely, and she wasn't going to put up with it anymore.

* * *

 **A/N: Another chapter for today! There's a chance I'll get about one or two more up today, so again, stay tuned! I'm only posting so many so quickly because all of these early chapters were all in the original ES and I only have to revise them!**

 **Thank you for reading, and feel free to drop a review if you have a little time! :)**


	5. Summer's Nearing End

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Summer's Nearing End_

Summary: There's just two weeks left until their first day of high school.

* * *

Just two weeks. That was all that remained before summer break would be over and freshman year of high school would begin.

Tucker scowled at the envelope he held in his hands. It was as if it only existed to remind him of how fast the summer had gone. _At least it was a good one_ , he thought to himself. He and his two best friends had gotten to spend a lot of time together and were now closer than they'd ever been before. They'd done a lot, from swimming to camping to just hanging out in general. It was a summer worth remembering.

Sam had accidentally revealed that she was _hella_ loaded one time when Tucker and Danny had swung by her house to pick her up before they went down to the Nasty Burger. Apparently she hadn't been thinking when she told them her address and didn't realize what she'd done until it was too late. But no matter, it didn't change a thing about the close bond the three of them shared.

Tucker snapped back into the real world, got into his mom's car, and put the envelope on the dashboard as he pulled on his seatbelt. Angela pulled the car out of the parking space she'd been waiting in and turned onto the main road, away from Casper High School. "So, what classes did you get this year?" she asked her son as they came to a stop at the streetlight.

Tucker inwardly sighed and took the envelope back into his hands. The front was plain except for the generic sticker with his full name and grade printed on it.

 _Tucker Maurice Foley_

 _Grade: 9_

He turned it over and opened the seal before pulling out the papers inside, the majority of which were boring registration papers, fees and whatnot. The paper on top was the only one that held any real interest to Tucker at the moment as he took it and read over it. "I got the basic stuff, English 1, chem, algebra 1 and geometry. Dunno know which ones will be first semester."

Angela raised an eyebrow, "So that there isn't your real schedule yet?" Tucker shook his head, "No, we get that on the first day. This just says what classes we'll have in no specific order." Angela nodded in understanding before asking, "What electives did you get this year? Hopefully you at least got into computer programming. I know how much you were looking forward to that class."

Tucker grinned, "Matter of fact, I did. I got computer programming, media tech, PE, and marketing for electives this year." Angela smiled a bit, "Four out of eight of your classes are electives? Seems you've got it made!"

"Yeah, _this year._ Next year's gonna be harder since I'll have to do my world language credit then." Tucker sighed. "Well, that's good. Gives you this year to get used to high school before it gets too difficult."

"Yeah, guess so."

Tucker pulled out his phone and snapped a quick picture of his class list to send to the group chat. He looked out the car window for some time on their drive home. In the distance Tucker caught sight of something green flash through the sky. Angela had apparently seen it too as she bent down a little to watch ahead with slightly wider eyes. "Tuck, honey, do you mind putting the radio on?" He nodded and pressed the button before going straight to 44.9, the EER, or Ecto Emergency Radio.

"-and we've just received word of a new attack near 34th and Maple. Yes, that's 34th Street and Maple. We highly recommend you avoid the area if possible. The threat seems to be low rank; however, you can never be too cautious with these things. From news channels in the area we are able to tell…" Angela turned the volume down a bit, having heard what she needed to. "Well, looks like we're gonna have to take a little detour."

Tucker sighed and leaned back in his seat, "Man, I was supposed to be meeting the others in five minutes!" Angela just shrugged and shook her head, "Ghosts. What're you gonna do?"

"Yeah, if only we lived in some other _normal_ town that doesn't get attacked by the supernatural everyday." he said bitterly. "Well, you know your Pa and I chose to come here for the career opportunities and quite frankly it's been working out well for us. We're able to provide for the family and that's what matters." Angela said. "I think you mean _Dad_ came here for the career. You could probably get a job at any hospital in Illinois." Tucker reminded her. Angela quirked a small smile, "Yeah, maybe so. But Amity ain't so bad once you get used to it. Even got some of the lowest crime rates in the country."

Tucker had to agree there. He wondered briefly if it was perhaps because people worried more about the supernatural attacks than anything some humans might try. _Or maybe it's because there seems to be government agents around every corner these days,_ he thought.

The drive back home ended up taking at least fifteen minutes longer than it should've with the detour they had to take to avoid the attack. They'd listened to the news report on the way to hear that thankfully no got hurt at this particular occurrence and that the GIW agents on the scene were able to detain the threat.

By the time Tucker made it to the park near his house to meet up with his friends, he was about a half hour late. "Well, well, look who decided to finally show up." Sam said from the park bench where she was sitting with Danny and a big black and purple bag with some towels in it. "Shut up. We had to take a detour because of an attack." Tucker said, carrying his own towel under one of his arms. "Another one? In broad daylight?" Danny asked. "Yeah, but I don't think it was a major one or anything. Apparently the GIW handled it pretty quick." Tucker said, but immediately found himself regretting saying the last part.

"Oh, well that's just _fantastic,_ isn't it?" Sam growled, "Because killing, torturing, and experimenting on every ghost they can find, innocent or not, will _definitely_ make them stop terrorizing the town." She clenched her fists, "I _still_ don't get it. Why do both of you guy's parents even keep working for those monsters?!"

Tucker raised his hands up in surrender, "Hey, my dad's only a technician in one of their office buildings. He doesn't have anything to do with whatever missions and experiments they do. Plus government salaries are pretty fine." Sam just continued to scowl.

"My parents just hate anything with ectoplasm."

Sam turned her glare onto Danny. "What? It's not like I'm actually on _their_ side. Neither is Jazz."

A bit of her anger fled her, "Yeah, I guess you're right. I can't blame you guys." Tucker chose then to flip the direction of the conversation, "So, we're still going to the water park, right?"

A couple of hours later the trio found themselves taking a break under an umbrella on the grass. The late afternoon sun in August had worn them all out after some time of going on various water slides or sitting in the wave pool. "Y'know, I still think Maximum Velocity is _the_ best slide here." Tucker said. Danny smirked, "What? No way dude, Mammoth Falls is definitely a way bigger drop."

Tucker pointed to his best friend, "Yeah. _Drop._ As in singular. Maximum Velocity has like seven drops and goes _way_ faster!" Sam raised an eyebrow at the two, "Think what you like, but I still say the clear winner here is Tornado."

"Because it's in the dark?"

"Because it's in the dark."

Danny suddenly remembered something, "Hey Tuck, what classes did you get this year?" Tucker adjusted his red beret, which had gotten soaked on the last slide they went on, "You didn't check the group chat?" Danny shook his head, "Nope. Left my phone at home."

Tucker pulled his own phone out, of course he had a totally waterproof case on it, and opened the picture he'd sent, zooming in to read it again. "I think all three of us have the same core classes this year, English 1, chemistry, algebra 1 and geometry?" Upon receiving two nods he went on to recite his electives.

"Nope. Well, I've got PE, but we'd only see each other if we have it at the same time and still only on days we happen to do coed." Sam sighed. "I've got PE and media tech. Dunno if we'll get in the same classes though." Danny said.

Tucker closed his phone, "At least there's a good chance we'll get some of our harder classes together, plus lunch hour." The other two agreed quietly. Sam noticed her stomach growl and dug into her bag to pull out some celery sticks and peanut butter. Danny noticed and raised an eyebrow, "I thought you weren't supposed to bring food in the park." Sam smirked and dipped a piece of celery in the little cup of peanut butter she'd opened, "You're not. But honestly, who's gonna care enough to come stop me? Besides, they only made that rule so that when people got hungry, they'd have to buy food from the park." Danny just shook his head and laughed quietly.

For the next five minutes the trio were quiet. Tucker had started playing a game on his phone, Danny was nearly asleep, and Sam just ate her snack, enjoying the peace. Unfortunately, it was broken when Sam caught sight of a group of loud jocks walking somewhat in their direction, although they obviously hadn't noticed any of the trio. Sam nudged Danny, who peeked one eye open at her. "Your favorite person's here." she said and pointed with her eyes. Danny followed her line of sight and groaned, "Why does Dash always seem to have a knack of showing up whenever we got out in public?" he asked.

"Relax. He probably won't even notice us. Or if he does he'll probably just ignore us. This is _way_ to public of a place for him to try and beat you up." Tucker reasoned once he'd caught on to what the others were talking about. "I hope you're right." Danny murmured and put his head back down, closing his eyes once more.

As the group passed by Tucker looked through the different faces. Dash, Kwan, Jacob, DJ, some faces he recognized but couldn't put a name to, plus a couple he'd never seen before. The group was loud, constantly horsing around, and swearing loudly. Fortunately, none of them seemed to take notice of the trio as they strolled by, likely headed towards the Tornado water slide.

Five or so minutes later Sam had finished her snack but the three continued to just be lazy for a while more. The shadow of the umbrella had shifted a bit since they'd all sat down for a break, leaving a part of Sam's leg exposed to the hot late afternoon sun. Honestly though, it was a beautiful day the trio had chosen to use their season passes to the water park for the last time.

"We aren't gonna split up once high school starts, are we?" Tucker asked seemingly out of the blue. Danny, having known him for so long, could tell this question must have been weighing on him for a while. His blueish green eyes were dull and his mouth was creased into a small frown. "Tuck, our friendship has lasted since we were infants. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon and I kind of doubt she is either." Danny said, gesturing towards Sam at the end. Sam grinned, "Nope. You're stuck with us."

Tucker smiled a little and shrugged, "We're probably gonna end up with pretty different schedules, plus there'll be a lot of new people from different elementary schools…chances are at least one of us will start getting more and more distant until we'd just stop talking anymore. We probably won't even notice it's happening until later."

Sam scoffed, "Alright, I'm the observant one here so from now on _I'll_ make sure that doesn't happen, got it?" Danny rolled his eyes in amusement, "Tuck, really, don't worry. We'll still at least have lunch together every day. Sam and I aren't going anywhere, promise."

Tucker nodded feeling slightly reassured, "Good. Cuz you two are the only real friends I got right now." He was determined not to lose either of the two of them. He didn't know what he'd do without them. _But they are right_ , he thought, _who says high school has to change that?_ That summer had brought them closer than they'd ever been. True that in two weeks would be the start of a new chapter, but they'd still be the same people with the same friendship, now and forevermore.

* * *

 **A/N:** **Shoutout to anyone who can figure out the meaning/importance of using the number 44.9 as the Ecto Emergency Radio station! Give your best guess in the review section! Good luck! :)**

 **Stay tuned! I plan on posting one more chapter today, likely within the hour!**

 **Thanks for reading! Feel free to drop a review if you've got some time to spare! :)**


	6. Foreboding Feelings

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Foreboding_ _Feelings_

Summary: The portal is almost finished. The agents at their house keep telling him it's going to change everything.

* * *

It was just past seven o'clock when Danny finally got home from the afternoon with his friends at the water park. He'd seen the government cars outside the house so it was no surprise when he saw his mom talking to an agent in the kitchen while his dad and the others were making a racket downstairs in the lab.

The agent Maddie was talking to was one Danny happened to recognize, Agent K, also known as John Kelvin. John had been the GIW executive who'd been overseeing the portal project for the past seven years. Maddie walked back from the counter towards the agent as she extended a cup of fresh coffee to him, which he generously accepted. She was just about to take a sip of her own cup when she noticed her son standing in the doorway.

"Danny! You're home! How was it today? Did you have dinner already?" Maddie asked, knowing John wouldn't really mind the interruption. _Besides, family always comes first,_ she thought to herself.

Danny dropped his bag by the door and slipped off his red converse, "Uh, it was fun. We had dinner at Tuck's when we got back." He headed towards the living room because that couch just looked so nice right now as he heard his mom shout about there being leftovers in the fridge in case he got hungry or something.

Once he finally made it to the couch he plopped himself down and picked up his phone that'd he'd left there. He checked the group chat to see if either Sam or Tucker had sent anything. All he found was the picture that Tucker had told him he'd sent earlier of his class list. Danny sighed a little and set his phone down on the coffee table to instead pick up the TV remote. When the screen flickered on it was no surprise to find it had been left on the Ghost Watch channel the last time it had been used. Danny wanted to change the channel but found himself instead deciding on listening for a moment to the interview that was airing. The well known redheaded reporter, Tiffany Snow, was on and seemed to be hosting a debate between two others with opposing views. At the bottom of the screen the banner read, "NEW ANTI-ECTO LAWS GOING INTO EFFECT IN COMING DECEMBER" Danny grimaced just imagining what Sam's reaction would be like.

"Those are going to help a lot of people."

Danny had nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden appearance of the deep voice behind him. The agent must have noticed his flinch because he grinned, "Scare ya?" Danny glanced up behind him at the agent and turned back to the TV, "Didn't know you were there" he mumbled, cringing slightly when he felt a strong hand rest on his shoulder. "Say, did your parents tell you the big news?" John asked. Danny thought for a moment then shook his head no.

"No? Thought they would be more enthusiastic about it." John said.

The teen just shrugged, "They're probably just too busy. So, what's the news?"

Agent K grinned and rubbed his chin, "Well…the portal. Its due to be finished by the end of this week." Danny's eyes widened a bit, "After all this time...?" He nodded, and was about to say more when his phone started ringing, "I've got to take this, see you later kiddo."

With that, the agent left the room, leaving Danny alone again. The TV was still on, but Danny paid little mind to it. It was almost unbelievable. The portal was actually going to be done. It seemed like that project had always just been one of the constants in his life, seeing as it had begun when Danny was just seven years old. He briefly wondered about what his parents were going to do when it _was_ done…

Something suddenly moved in his peripheral vision and he turned quickly to look outside the living room window. There was nothing there.

Deciding to go upstairs, Danny got up and moved towards the stairs, passing the kitchen on the way.

"I don't understand it. Why would we get such a strong reading and then lose it so quickly?" Danny didn't really know what his mom was talking about exactly, but it sounded important.

"Whatever the reason, we know something's nearby. Q, I, search the area, I'll call it in, see if we can get some backup." Agent K said.

"Is that necessary?"

"I'll decide that, and yes, it is. That was no glitch, all of our sensors just picked up a level 8.4 entity."

"We haven't seen one that strong in Amity in years."

Danny watched as two agents, presumably Q and I, left the kitchen and headed out the door, inconspicuously adjusting the settings on their ectoguns. He realized then that most normal people would be pretty concerned in this situation, hearing that apparently some really powerful supernatural being was possibly in a close vicinity. Then again, he wasn't the most normal person, and this definitely wasn't the most normal house. He knew logically that nothing non human could get in or out of the house without his parents being alerted, but then why did he feel like he wasn't alone for the rest of the night?

* * *

 **A/N: Alright, this is the last chapter I'll be putting up for today! Sorry, it's a tad short, but I feel like it tells what it needs to.**

 **Thanks for reading! Feel free to drop a review if you have a little time to spare, it would be greatly appreciated! :)**


	7. Hopeful Mothers

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Hopeful Mothers_

Summary: Maddie and Angela share an afternoon together.

* * *

It was just past one in the afternoon and for once the Fenton household was quiet, well, mostly. The sound of the teapot whistling in the kitchen was the only real noise to disrupt the house on this day. Jack had gone out to get the very long list of groceries Maddie had made for him while Danny and Jazz had both escaped to their friends' houses for the day. That left the house to Maddie, who'd invited one of her own good friends over for a cup of tea before their shift started.

"So do you really think it's going to work?" Angela Foley asked her friend. Maddie went to the counter pour their two cups of tea, "Hopefully it will. We've triple and quadruple checked _every_ calculation. Theoretically, it _should_ work." Angela nodded, "Let's say it does, what happens then? Or does that fall under the category of top secret government stuff you can't tell anyone about?"

Maddie smiled in amusement, "No, no secret. I suppose we'll start simply by testing the environment of the Ghost Zone." she said. "You planning on using drones or something for that? I mean, do we even know if there's any oxygen in there?" Angela asked. "From studies we can say that theoretically, yes, there'd be oxygen in their natural environment, but yeah, we were planning to use drones until we can be sure it's safe for a human." Maddie replied.

Angela turned back to the two cups of tea and pulled the teabags out of both, placing them in the trash as Maddie got the milk out of the fridge. She poured a bit into both cups. Angela picked up her cup and stirred it a bit before taking the spoon out and putting it in the sink while Maddie did the same, but added a pinch of sugar in her own to sweeten it up.

"It's still hard to wrap my mind around the thought of there being a whole other world out there that's just full of these ghosts. Sure, we see natural portals 'round the clock but…" Angela trailed off, lost in deep thought, "What'd you think it looks like there?"

Maddie was almost taken aback by the simple question. Out of all the questions she'd ever received about her knowledge on the ghostly world, she'd never had to answer one like that. The questions she'd always get were 'How big is it?', 'How many ghosts live there?', 'Do they have an atmosphere?' or even 'Would a human turn into a ghost if they went there?'. She was never asked what it looks like.

"Um…I…I don't know…Suppose we'll find out, huh?"

"Yeah…"

Maddie took another sip of her tea, "Honestly, I'm just hoping it's going to help us figure out a solution to the whole ghost issue." Angela nodded slowly, "Do you think the ghosts would have, oh, I don't know, some form of government? Or even a monarchy maybe?" Maddie laughed causing Angela to raise an eyebrow. "I'm sorry," she said, still laughing slightly, "it's just- well, have you ever been at a ghost attack? They're mindless. They don't have a conscience. There's no way they'd be able to form any kind of civilization. They're also extremely selfish creatures. They wouldn't care enough to ever even help each other unless it would result in their own personal gain."

Angela processed this new information. She knew the ghosts that attacked their town were evil and often mindless, but she couldn't bring herself to believe that every last one of them was all bad, after all, apparently, there was a whole other world full of them. If there _did_ happen to be any type of law in the Ghost Zone, wouldn't it be so much easier if they could at least try to make peace with them? Angela decided to keep her own opinion on ghosts quiet for now however, it wouldn't do any good to get into an argument with her best friend one of the few times they were able to spend some time together.

Maddie sighed, "This whole thing, I've been doing it in hopes that our kids wouldn't have to be as accustomed to daily ghost attacks, like we are. Looks like we're a little late for that though." Angela smiled slightly, "Maybe so, but if we can't change things for our children, I say we can at least still try to change them for our grandchildren." Angela said and drank some more of her tea. Maddie's eyes brightened a bit as she smiled, "You're right Ang. You're damn right."

* * *

 **A/N: Apologies for another short chapter! The next one is a tad longer.**

 **Stay tuned! Next chapter is going up right now as well!**

 **Thanks for reading! Feel free to drop a review if you've got some time to spare! :)**


	8. Failure

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Failure_

Summary: It seemed like everything had been leading up to this moment, so how could they have failed?

* * *

Switches were flipped and dials were turned as the low hum of electricity grew stronger. The room was filled with at least fifty people ranging from scientists, to engineers, to GIW agents. Everyone who had been directly involved with the portal project was now crammed into the Fenton's lab to watch, what they were hoping would be a scientific breakthrough.

Maddie looked around the room once more before her eyes landed on one Greg Axel, the director of the GIW. She felt her stomach twist from anxiety as she silently prayed that the portal would turn on and work properly _And heaven forbid something to go wrong_. First impressions had always been very important to Maddie, she couldn't even think of how embarrassing it would be if their first impression on the director of the GIW was that of a complete failure.

Maddie's husband, Jack, however, was having different thoughts. He remembered the first time they'd tried to build a portal to the Ghost Zone and how horribly wrong it'd gone. The stabilizing barrier had faltered when they'd tried to start it up, resulting in his old buddy, Vlad, getting an ectoblast straight to the face. He ended up with a nasty case of Ecto-Acne that'd landed him in the hospital for quite some time.

When he looked around the room Jack noticed how many people were standing within just three feet of the portal and chose to do something about it, in case something was to go wrong like the last time. "I'd like to suggest everyone take a few steps back from the portal." Jack said. Maddie smiled at her husband's thinking and added, "Just to be on the safe side."

Everyone seemed to agree and shifted back a few feet further from the big hole in the wall. Greg Axel stole a glance at his watch, "May we get this demonstration started now? I do have a very tight schedule today." he said, impatiently tapping his foot on the ground. The two Fentons agreed and plugged in what they thought would be the last thing before they flipped the main switch.

Everyone watched in fascination as the portal began to whirl to life. Lights flickered inside on all the walls and small sparks began to fly. Breaths hitched all through the room as the electricity began to form a spiral, but one person knew at that moment, something wasn't right.

Maddie watched as the energy nearly finished its rotation, a frown gracing her lips. The electric was still raw. The bolts were still a pure white color. She knew something had gone wrong, she knew the purified ectoplasm should have already begun to mix with the raw electricity. Problem was, it hadn't. There was not even a trace of ectoplasm being released into the system, meaning...

Just as she'd thought, the electric bolts fizzled out until there were only sparks left behind. Maddie let out the breath she'd been holding in a sigh. At least she had an idea of what could've gone wrong, maybe they'd still be able to get it working with a few more adjustments. However, the thing that was upsetting was the fact that this had been their chance to _truly_ prove themselves to the GIW. Of course, science is full of trial and error, but Maddie had really been hoping this time. She caught sight of Director Axel and took in the disappointment written on his face, triggering some unwanted thoughts to fly into her head. _What if the GIW doesn't want to work with us anymore? Would they pull out of their funding contract because of this failure?_

"We must've made a small calculation or programming error somewhere. And we were so sure it would work..." Jack said dejectedly. Maddie sent him a small smile, "I think I know where our mistake might've been if we could just have a little more time." she said, looking to Director Axel, who narrowed his eyes in concentration. "This project will receive the funds it need for two more weeks. If it's not successful by then we'll be forced to abandon it. We've already gone over the budget we had set for this project."

Maddie felt slightly relieved. She had confidence they'd be able to fix it by then, even if it meant some more late nights up. "Thank you. I have faith we'll be able to get it up and running by then." she said. Director Axel nodded respectfully, "I'm counting on it."

A couple of hours later everyone had left except, of course, Maddie and Jack. The two of them sat together on the couch going over some ideas when Danny finally came home. "So…did it work?" he asked somewhat hesitantly. "No, not this time son, but we're still going to try and find wherever it is we went wrong." Jack answered.

Before Danny was able to disappear upstairs Maddie remembered something, "Oh yeah, Danny!" she called. He paused on the stairs, "What?"

"Just reminding you, both of us are taking Jazz downtown tomorrow to tour those two colleges, did you want to come with us?" Maddie asked hopefully. She imagined it'd be nice to finally get some quality family time with how crazy busy everything had been lately. However, much to her disappointment he said he'd rather stay home. "Are you sure? We'll probably be out all day. We were going to grab some lunch on the way, then it'll likely be another five or six hours. We were talking about maybe going out for a family dinner afterwards as well…?" Maddie wished that'd be enough to convince him, but that wasn't the case. "Um, yeah. I'd really rather stay here if that's ok." he said.

Maddie sighed, but she understood. Spending a whole day touring colleges on one of the last days of summer break likely wouldn't pique the interest of _any_ average fourteen year old boy. "Well, alright. We're gonna get going around eleven, in case you change your mind by then." she said and watched as he nodded and vanished upstairs.

She heard his door shut and sighed, "We really should try to do more as a family, Jack." He just beamed at her, "Then that's what we'll do! And once this portal is done we'll finally have more time to do that." he said sounding ever like the optimist he was. "I suppose…" Maddie said, "Damn those ghosts for making us lose time for our own children." she finished bitterly. "Yeah, to hell with them, but we shouldn't let 'em get us down, now should we?"

Maddie looked into her husband's eyes, a beautiful blue gray color. They just held so much life within them, she found it hard not to smile. "I love you." she said quietly and hugged him close. "I love you too sweetcakes." he said simply and kissed her forehead.

* * *

 **A/N: And here's the last chapter going up for today! I will not be posting tomorrow and the next day for Christmas Eve and Day, but I will be back with the next chapter(s) on Wednesday the 26th!**

 **Thanks for reading! Feel free to drop a review if you've got a little spare time! :)**


	9. Death

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Death_

Summary: Danny hears someone, or something while home alone. It leads him to the basement.

* * *

It was around 9 am when Danny woke up to either his parents or Jazz calling him. Of course, they'd all been up and ready to go already, even though they didn't plan on leaving for another two hours. He groaned and stretched his arms. The feeling of being watched returned.

He hadn't even really realized it had gone away until it was back. He couldn't explain it either, as logically he knew nothing even _could_ be there. In that house it was simply impossible, but that fact didn't seem to matter much to the blur of movement he kept catching in his peripheral vision.

Usually on one of the last days of summer and with no plans for the day, Danny would've stayed in bed longer, maybe even fallen back asleep, but the unease in the atmosphere that morning had him heading downstairs sooner.

As he made his way down the stairs, Maddie yelled, saying there was extra bacon left on the kitchen counter. That perked him up a little bit. As promised, when he got into the kitchen there was a plate with about seven strips of bacon left, sitting on the stove. Whoever had been cooking must've made too much on accident. Danny grabbed a plate with a bagel and a few pieces of bacon and sat down at the kitchen table. Not a moment later, Jazz came in with her red hair in a messy bun and no makeup. "I thought you'd be all ready to go by now." Danny said casually. Jazz looked at him, "We're not leaving for another two hours." she said and opened the fridge, pulling out an iced tea drink. "Yeah, but aren't you always super early for like, everything?" Danny asked her. "Aren't _you_ always super _late_ for like, everything?" she countered with a smile and left the room, drink in hand.

A black blur zoomed across the other room, causing Danny to jump. It had seemed kind of like a ghost, yet kind of...not.

He glanced around to where some of the many ghost detection devices were around the house. They were all green, nothing supernatural could've possibly been there.

Around an hour and a half later Danny had fully convinced himself his mind had just been playing tricks with him and that there was definitely nothing besides him, his parents, and his sister in the house. That is, until it happened again.

There was a noise upstairs. It almost sounded like something had been dropped on the floor.

He'd been sitting on the couch when Jazz walked by again, this time with her hair neatly pulled back and simplistic makeup. She'd also changed into a nicer blouse and a black knee length skirt.

"Did you drop something?" Danny asked his older sister, who quirked an eyebrow. She had been the only one upstairs at the time. "No, why?" she asked, her curiosity piqued. Danny shrugged, "I don't know, just thought I heard something, I guess." Jazz dawned a look of realization, then frustration, "Ugh, it's this _toxic_ home environment! Now it's getting to you too!" she exclaimed before going out of the room and yelling down the basement stairs, "Mom! Dad! When can we have a _normal_ family vacation?!"

Danny had watched her as she went off again on how their home environment was a danger to him and Jazz's psychological health, until his eyes landed on something _far_ more intriguing. Across the room there was a side table with a flower pot that had a particularly reflective surface sitting on top. On the flower pot, from his position Danny saw a bright ectoplasmic green light. It was reflecting from the hallway just out of his view.

He blinked and it was gone. Perhaps it was simply never there. Perhaps it was just the light from some sort of tech his parents had in the hallway.

"Danny! We're leaving in just a few minutes! Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" his Mom called from the kitchen. Danny shook himself out of the daze he was in, "Um, yeah! I'll just stay here!" he yelled back. But was that really the smartest choice? What if there really was something in the house?

 _Impossible_.

Just about ten minutes later Danny watched as his mom, dad and sister were leaving on their way to tour some colleges downtown. "Bye!" his mom called, "I have my phone, text me if you need anything!" He simply nodded and with a _click_ she closed the door behind her.

Danny shifted his attention to the TV, to whatever movie happened to be on at the time, but he couldn't stay focused on it for more than three minutes. There was a sound that almost sounded like a gasp followed by a door opening.

His heart almost stopped in his chest and he spun around. Nothing there, but the lab door was now opened just a sliver.

He knew it had to have been closed before. His parents would _never_ leave the door open, not even a little. That door determined if the lab was on supernatural lock down or not. If it was open, most ghosts would be able to get in or out. If it was closed, the shield in the walls, floor and ceiling would be activated and nothing could get through. It was a bit like a strand of Christmas lights, one goes out, they all go out, that's why the door stays closed.

Danny's stomach was tight in a knot as he reached into the drawer in the coffee table and pulled out the small ectogun his parents kept there, _in case of emergency_. He stood up and slowly headed towards the lab door, heart pounding.

"... _can't do it..."_ and echoed voice said, although it was difficult to hear.

Should he close the door and leave it locked in? Danny didn't know what to do. It didn't sound very threatening or malicious though, and unlike his parents, he didn't believe that every ghost is inherently evil. Also, if he locked it in down there and let his parents find it later, they would undoubtedly try to capture it and experiment on it, and he didn't exactly want to help them do that.

He put his finger on the trigger of the ectogun and crept down the stairs into the lab. Through all the counter spaces, cabinets, and machinery Danny couldn't see anything unnatural. He kept going, breaths short and hands sweating. The only noises were the soft hum of the machines and a low, distant rumble made by the ventilation system.

Soon, the mouth of the portal stood boldly in front of him with little lights still flashing on the inside walls. He knew he shouldn't have been there.

As he went closer, Danny was able to see further inside the large hole in the wall, and a moment later finally caught a glimpse of the ghost he had followed down there. Its back was turned, and its weird lack of a ghostly aura in the dark tunnel made it hard to see what it looked like. He saw black and a bright neon green as it laid a hand on the wall of the failed portal.

Then it vanished. No, not "went invisible" type of vanished, but _really_ vanished. As in just _gone._

Danny flinched and quickly looked around. He saw one of his parent's more basic ghost detectors and picked it up. As he waited impatiently for the device to turn on, he kept glancing around. The little device soon came to life and took a reading before giving it's conclusion on the screen.

 _NO ECTOPLASMIC ENTITIES DETECTED_

 _ECTOPLASM IN AIR DETECTED: 0.7% [SAFE]_

Releasing the breath he had been holding, Danny relaxed a bit and set the ectogun down on the counter after powering it down.

He looked at the portal frame. Taking a step forward, Danny peered inside to see wires and cables everywhere looking more like a big tangle of snakes than anything else. Levers and handles lined the two side walls as well as a bunch of pressure monitors and gauges. On the left wall, he noticed, there was a line of screens with readings of various things. They nearly all had a little green wavering bar on it, except for one. It was near the back and had a tiny bar wavering in the red zone. _That was where the ghost was._ There was a little label above the reading, but Danny was unable to read what it said from his place outside the portal.

After thinking for just a moment he decided it'd be harmless to just go read what the label said. The portal didn't even work anyways. He took a breath and stepped cautiously inside, avoiding all the wires tangled up on the floor.

The portal itself was only about eight or nine feet long, but it was rather dark inside after just a couple feet.

He kept going, slowly passing the large variety of devices and machinery on and in the walls. When he finally made it to the back of the portal, having successfully evaded all the wires on the floor, Danny found the small screen with the red bar and read above it.

 _ECTOPLASMIC RELEASE SYSTEM:_ _OFFLINE_

 _Huh,_ Danny thought, _I wonder if that might be stopping it from running…but Mom's pretty thorough, she probably checked all these little things already._ He shrugged and took a step to leave, but was too caught up in his own thoughts to remember the wires that littered the floor.

His shoe got hooked underneath one of the arched cables and it tripped him. On instinct, he reached his right hand out towards the wall in a last ditch effort to stop his fall, and stop his fall, it did.

His hand ended up landing on a lever that gave way under his grip and shifted into a downward position. Danny unhooked his shoe and pulled himself up just in time to see the little red bar from before shoot up , through the orange and yellow, and into the green zone.

 _ECTOPLASMIC RELEASE SYSTEM:_ _ONLINE_

He looked at the screen with one hand still placed on the wall and his heart still racing from his near fall. _Should I turn that back off?_ He wondered briefly for just a fraction of a second before there was a loud whirring noise. Danny felt his stomach twist at the realization that he must've triggered something, but there was no time to move, no time to speak, no time to even think anymore.

One bolt. That was all it took. One bolt of high voltage electricity running straight through the palm of his right hand and right on through the rest of his body. His knees buckled and his head went back before time slowed nearly to a standstill.

Next thing he knew, Danny was starring right at the ceiling of the portal. He suddenly felt weightless and partly lost, yet free. He went to reach out to the ceiling, but found himself lacking in any type of solid form. A slow flash of light in the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned over, still weightless and floating, to see a rather confusing and horrifying sight.

He saw himself, surrounded by pure white electric bolts that moved at a snail's pace. His hand was still on the wall where it was lit up like a Christmas tree with a path winding up through his arm. His body still hadn't even hit the floor yet.

 _Am I…dead?_

 _What am I supposed to do now? Where- no what am I right now?_

 _Oh, hell no. I better not be a ghost. Mom and Dad are gonna kill me. Again. Unfortunately, maybe literally too._

He was pulled from his thoughts when he saw a green substance in the corner of his vision. Danny looked back towards the back wall of the portal where there was a good dose of ectoplasm being injected into the electric bolts. he watched as the ectoplasm slowly traveled through a particularly large bolt of electricity, turned white to green as it passed. Following the path of the bolt with his eyes he saw that it also happened to go straight through what was now apparently his corpse. His corpse that was currently being stabbed by about ten different bolts of electricity.

The green traveled and trickled through the electricity, moving faster than the bolt itself, although in this odd state even that was slow to Danny. He saw as it finally approached his human body, but then the unexpected happened.

The moment the electrified ectoplasm hit his human body, Danny was thrown back down, all weightlessness gone as his consciousness re-merged with his body. Time sped up to return to its normal speed once again.

Blue eyes shot open and starred straight up into toxic green electric bolts. He finally hit the floor and wasted no time rolling over and looking for the way out. His whole right arm felt like it was on fire, even more so in the palm of his hand. He pulled it close to himself and attempted to crawl back to the entrance of the portal only to be continuously hammered by high voltage shocks.

He could see the lab. It was the light at the end of the tunnel, literally, but everything just _burned_.

 _So close…yet…so far…_

 _Maybe it'd be easier to just give up…_

 _No…not...yet._

He gripped the edge of the metal frame around the portal. More massive shocks hit him and he knew he was probably screaming, he just couldn't hear it over everything else.

 _Almost there…just do it now._

With one final surge of energy he pulled himself out of the electric vortex and pushed himself just a few more feet away from the portal.

 _Now let's just hope I don't die here on the lab floor._

Danny collapsed from the pain and exhaustion. For once he found the floor in the lab very comforting, just smooth, cool metal tiles. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his right hand flat against the cool surface. _Screw it if the floor is dirty and it gets it infected_ , he thought, _at least it helps a little._ Small shocks remained and continued to course through Danny, causing him to flinch. He peeked his eyes open a little and caught sight of the bit of hair that usually hung over his eyes, his breath hitched in his throat when he saw it was white. Another shock ran down his spine and when he looked again his hair was back to normal. He didn't want to worry about that right now, he couldn't.

Everything hurt and ached and burned, and he just wanted it to stop. The edges of his vision turned dark and fuzzy. He didn't resist.

* * *

 **A/N: Alright, so here's this AU's version of The Accident. This is also pretty different from the way I wrote it happening in the original ES.**

 **Hope you guys liked this chapter! Lemme know if you did or didn't in the reviews section!**

 **New chapter(s) tomorrow!**


	10. What Am I

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _What Am I_

Summary: From the instant he wakes up on the cold tile floor, he knows something is very, very wrong.

* * *

Eyes still unopened, Danny became aware of his position on the lab floor, as he felt the side of his face pressed against the cool metal tiles. It didn't take more than a moment for him to remember why he was there.

Blue eyes slowly blinked open and it became instantly obvious that something had changed, something was _wrong_. Colors were all distorted in his eyes, not so much changed around, but more like altered just enough for it to be obvious. He tried closing his eyes and opening them again many times, but it did nothing.

Danny took a breath and tried to recount everything that had happened. He looked down at his right hand as it stung from being pressed against the floor. What he saw, was possibly even weirder than the change in his vision. Dread settled in his stomach as he looked at the faintly glowing green Lichtenburg figure that trailed up his wrist and forearm.

"What the hell...?"

He tried to wipe the mark away, wincing when it began to tingle and burn again. The green was definitely ectoplasm, and it didn't come off, so that meant it wasn't just on the surface, it was _inside him_.

"Human...biology and stuff shouldn't be able to mix with ectoplasm" he said to himself, remembering some of the stuff his parents had told him and Jazz about Ectology., "but then how...?". He looked closely at the weird green scar and swore he could almost see the ectoplasm pulsing and moving. Glancing around the room in confusion. his eyes soon landed on the portal.

The green vortex now pulsed and swirled steadily.

"...how am I alive?"

It didn't make any sense. Danny might not have wanted to ever follow in his parents footsteps, but he had picked up enough information on both that portal and Ectology in general to know that there is no way he should even still be breathing. He knew the voltage he'd been hit with itself probably should have been enough to do him in, and that didn't even account for the amount of exposure to raw, pure ectoplasm that he was sure he'd had.

Suddenly remembering something, he turned and glanced at the digital clock on the wall and his eyes widened.

 _5:46_

"I was passed out for hours?!"

Getting up was a bit painful, but he hurried to do it and ran up the stairs and out of the lab, all while just hoping his parents and Jazz weren't back yet. When he got to the top of the stairs and closed the lab door behind him, he was expecting to get dizzy or lightheaded from the sudden motion, but instead he felt oddly energized. Looking around he found the kitchen and living room empty, and it hadn't looked like anyone had come in.

A few minutes later Danny had made it upstairs to his room. He shut the door and leaned his back against it when he suddenly felt like everything inside of him was burning and itching and stinging. He cried out in surprise and slid down the door to the floor. Briefly wondering if death was just finally catching up, he curled in on himself. Every muscle in his body was tense and he was either shaking or shivering, he really couldn't tell which one at this point.

The odd wave of burning pain passed almost as quickly as it had come, leaving Danny confused and scared on the floor, all alone in the house. A moment later he spied his phone sitting on the carpet floor a couple feet away and reached for it.

His hand was shaking as he found his best friend's contact and dialed.

It rang, and rang, and rang, and eventually it went to voicemail. After the beep Danny took a breath and started talking.

"Hey Tuck."

Pause. He didn't know how to say this, he didn't even know _what_ to say.

"Something happened, something _crazy,_ and I just don't- I don't know what to do, and I don't know-"

 _...what I am._

"Could you just- just call me back."

He hung up.

Around an hour later it was just past seven and Danny felt his stomach twist with dread and anxiety when he heard the front door open and his mom calling to him. _I can do this. Just keep it together, don't let them know just yet._ He was just about to head downstairs when he noticed the green scar was very visible where it was on his palm and arm. He ran over to his closet he pulled out an old light green jacket before slipping it on, effectively covering the majority of the mark. Unfortunately, it was still pretty noticeable on his palm. An idea popped into his head as he dug to the bottom of one of his drawers and pulled out old black gloves that cut off at the fingers. He slipped them on quickly and ran downstairs, hoping they wouldn't get too suspicious of it.

"Hey" he greeted on his way down the stairs. "Hey, son! You missed it! At one of the colleges they had a presentation about their astronomy program, even had a speaker from NASA, you would've loved it!" Danny smiled at the fact that his parents always knew how much he wanted to work at NASA one day as an astronaut. Of course, his smiled faded as he remembered his thoughts from earlier. _If this_ thing _is permanent…would I even be able to be an astronaut? They have to pass so many medical exams…what if…_

"Are you cold or something?" Jazz suddenly asked. Danny looked up at her with wide eyes, "Well, yeah, I-I mean, it just seemed extra cold in my room, which is where I was...all day, so…yeah, so I decided to put on a jacket…and gloves." Jazz just raised an eyebrow, "Okay, whatever." then she added in a whisper, however, Danny still heard her clearly, "I still say we need a normal family vacation…"

"Whoa! Hey Mads, honey, you might want to have a look at this!" Jack suddenly yelled from the other room. _Oh no,_ Danny thought, _the portal._ Maddie followed Jack's voice and after a moment she yelled, "It's _working_?! B-but how?!" She went down into the lab to investigate more while Jack came back into the living room, "Danny, you were home all day, did you notice the portal started working?" He gulped, "I-it is? I mean, it did? No I didn't- didn't notice." Thankfully for him, it wasn't his mom there interrogating him, or she would've noticed something was up, his dad, however, remained oblivious.

"You sure you didn't even hear anything?" he asked. "Nope, no, didn't hear anything, but I did fall asleep for a couple of hours, so, I-I don't know." Jack seemed to accept his son's answers and a smile grew on his face, "Well I can't believe it, but it seems to be working like a charm now!" Danny forced a smile for his dad and soon after retreated back to his room and shut the door.

Hours passed but Danny barely moved until it was nearly one in the morning. Tucker had never called him back, he figured he'd probably gotten his phone taken away again. Danny was actually a bit glad for that, because even if Tucker had called back, he didn't know what he would even tell him.

* * *

 **A/N: Hey! Thought I'd let you guys know I won't be posting a new chapter tomorrow, but I will continue the next day (Saturday, December 29th).**

 **Thank you all very much for reading/favoriting/following/reviewing!**


	11. Surrounded

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Surrounded_

Summary: This was indefinitely the most uncomfortable evening out he has ever experienced.

* * *

"Danny!" Maddie called up the stairs, "Are you about ready to leave?!"

 _Leave? Where?_ Danny poked his head out of his bedroom door, "To go where?!" he yelled back.

"We're going out for dinner, didn't your father tell you already?!" she called back up. Danny thought for a moment, "Um…no?"

Maddie sighed at the forgetfulness of her husband, "Well, we're going out to celebrate the portal finally working! We've invited the Foley's to come with us, and a few agents are coming as well!" Danny grimaced, "Do I have to go?!" he asked.

"Well…yes. This is a _family_ outing Danny! Besides, Tucker will be there to keep you company!" she replied, "We're leaving in a few minutes so go on and get ready!"

Danny groaned and shut the door again. For the first time in probably ever, he felt a bit anxious about meeting with Tucker, his best friend practically since birth. He'd left a the voicemail on his friend's phone the previous night, explaining that something really weird had happened. Worst of all, there was no way of knowing if Tucker had listened to the message, or if he had just gotten his phone taken away from him again and hadn't seen it yet. _Guess I'll found out soon,_ Danny thought.

In all honesty, he was exhausted and would rather take a nice long nap than go out at the moment. He'd been crammed up in his room pretty much all day trying to figure what was wrong with him, only to discover he could now spontaneously disappear and phase through solid matter. _That_ had caused quite a panic, which had only subsided once he found his pulse was still present. The remainder of the day after that was spent trying to get a grip on his new… _abilities…_ if only so he wouldn't slip up in front of his parents or out in public. He figured as long as he could learn to control whatever _it_ was, he could just go on living like nothing had changed, right? However, the long dimly glowing scar on his arm, could not be ignored.

Danny muttered a few curses under his breath and pulled out a different jacket from his closet, this one being dark red and having a bit longer sleeves. He slipped on one of the gloves onto his right hand and pulled down the sleeve so that it almost covered the glove entirely. After putting the other one on just so it would match and wouldn't stand out as odd, he ran a hand through his messy black hair and stumbled downstairs.

Close to and hour and a half later found ten people sat around a large booth in the corner of a restaurant. The place itself was average, nothing formal, but definitely nicer than a place like the Nasty Burger. The group had all just recently gotten their food after waiting for about a half hour.

Tucker swallowed a bite of the steak he'd gotten and nudged his best friend sitting next to him, "Bro, what's up? You've been acting kinda weird." Danny shrugged and poked at his food with the fork, "Nothing." It hadn't taken long for him to realize Tucker hadn't heard the voicemail he'd left. He was glad his friend hadn't heard it, but also a bit worried that he would eventually find it and listen to it. Coming up with a quick idea he asked quietly, "Hey, you didn't happen to get the voice message I left last night, did you?" Tucker frowned, "No, sorry man, I got banned from my phone until school starts on Wednesday. Why? Was it important?"

"NO. No, it was stupid, just something about that new version of Doomed, but I figured it out. Come to think of it, you can just delete that message if you see it, it was pointless, really." Danny said a little _too_ quickly. Tucker raised an eyebrow, "Uh…okay dude, whatever."

Danny internally sighed, he rarely ever lied to Tucker, the last time he did was probably back in fifth or sixth grade and for something incredibly stupid.

Across the table the adults were all engaged in some conversation which, begrudgingly to Danny, was about the new ghost portal. It seemed like everywhere he turned that _thing_ was smacking him in the face.

"-is indeed a major breakthrough. We'll be able to make many more technological _and_ tactical advancements with this type of an edge." Agent K said. The slightly older man next to the agent, Greg Axel, director of the GIW, smiled slightly, "That's right, and we owe it to the both of you." Jack and Maddie smiled proudly with heads held high. The director continued after taking a small drink, "Of course, we'll go over the details another day, but I believe we could definitely do better with a longer term partnership with Fenton Works. If you choose to accept our terms that is, although we can go over those another time."

Maddie glanced at Jack and smiled, "I think it'd be worth a shot."

Axel clasped his hands, "Well, enough about the portal for now, let us enjoy this food before it gets cold." Sierra Hunt, who'd been sitting beside John took the moment to ask, "So, Mrs. Foley, what line of work are you in?" Angela startled a bit at suddenly being brought back into the conversation, "Just Angela, please. I'm a doctor at Amity General Hospital."

The boring adult conversations continued on for the next several minutes shifting into all different kinds of topics like jobs, funny stories, and how the price of gas had gone up recently. Danny couldn't focus on anything any of them were saying even if he wanted to. One hundred percent of his attention was on the cold feeling that was pulsing inside him. The effort it took to suppress it was almost exhausting.

He poked at his food some more while his mind traveled elsewhere. Thoughts of the accident once more unfortunately came flooding back. He'd had trouble keeping his mind _off_ of it all day and all of the previous night. Taking a deep breath Danny once again pushed against the cold threatening to swallow him. If he let it take over, he knew now that he'd either turn invisible or fall through the chair and floor, and that was definitely not something he wanted to do in front of these people. _Other people don't have to deal with this shit, why do I have to? Because I'm not normal like them? No. No I AM normal. This is just a…condition…that might even be temporary. Yeah. I'm still the same as I was. Nothing's changed. It'll go away. It's all just a temporary side effect of being in that thing when it..._

A bit of the cold feeling decided to trail down Danny's right arm, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

 _CLANG!_

He was pulled from his thoughts, along with all the nine other people at the table, and a couple from the tables around them, when his fork dropped onto his dish. The resounding sound it had made was louder than one would expect. Most just turned back to their conversations not a moment later.

A small chuckled came from Tucker, "Dude, your hand just completely spasmed." he said still laughing. Obviously the dinner had been pretty boring for him as well if _this_ was the highlight of the night.

The cold pulled even harder at Danny and he decided he wasn't going to be able to shove it down much longer. After mumbling to Tucker where he was going he got up, fortunately, he'd been sitting on the end of the booth, and walked past some tables down a small hallway.

His vision had been distorted, although arguably enhanced, since he woke up after the accident, but now it was far more noticeable. The restaurant itself had lighting that was a bit on the dimmer side, but Danny could see into every shadow and corner just fine. The lamps that hung innocently above each of the tables seemed to be glaringly bright as he turned to look away from them. Even though he'd never been in this place before, Danny knew the colors he was seeing weren't what everyone else was seeing.

On top of the strange lighting and the offset colors, the noise in the place was almost just overwhelming. He could hear the kids across the room who were playing a game on the paper place mat provided by the restaurant, the salt shaker as it slid across the table that was being cleaned, and the chef shouting in the back. It was like he could hear everything at once, yet nothing as it blurred together, likely due to the panic that was setting in.

He pushed the door to the bathroom open and realized thankfully that no one was in there. The lights in there were even brighter than the lamps over the tables and it almost stung his eyes to look directly into them. He breathed in and went to lean against the white tiled side wall, only for the cold inside of him to shift and cause him to fall backwards. He fell straight through the wall, and ended up half in the back alley behind the restaurant and half still in the bathroom. He gasped and quickly pulled his legs with him into the alley.

It was dark and grungy and smelt _horrible_ , but somehow it was more comforting to be there than back inside and surrounded by people, and noise and bright lights. He shuffled back a bit and leaned against the back of a large dumpster. Danny pulled his knees closer to his chest and focused on breathing. _In and out, in and out._ By then it felt like the cold was clawing at him from the inside out, desperate to be freed.

Blueish-white electric rings shot into existence and flew in both directions over him. The cold spot became replaced by a small warmth floating somewhere inside him, his way back.

He was suddenly wearing what he had been the day before when he'd stepped into portal, but now the colors of the clothing were all inverted. The few strands of hair in front of his eyes were now white and as he reached up to grab it, a faint green light was cast on his hand. The now exposed green scar on his arm stuck out to him like a reminder. A reminder that it'd been his own stupidity that got him into this mess. It'd been over twenty four hours by then and whatever it was that was now inside him hadn't subsided at all, if anything it grew a little stronger.

"Oh god…" Danny complained and put his head in his hands, "Am I really gonna be stuck like this forever?" More 'what ifs' began swarming his mind and he choked back a sob.

Not a moment later the rings returned, and with them, his normal appearance, but he didn't feel any different.

* * *

 **A/N: Next chapter coming tomorrow! Will also be updating the Table of Contents soon!**

 **Thank you so much for reading/reviewing/following/favoriting! "See" ya soon! :)**


	12. High School

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _High_ _School_

Summary: They'd all thought for the past years that the start of high school would be some big deal.

* * *

They'd all thought for the past years that the start of high school would be some big deal. Everything would change, classes would be more serious, upperclassmen would have to be avoided at all costs, more drama in the hallways, etc. Turns out it was none of that. Instead it almost felt like just another day. The jerks were still jerks, and nerds were still nerds. Classes were hardly any different besides the subject matter and apparently the juniors and seniors couldn't care less about the freshmen.

The first day passed in the blink of an eye. By the end of the day Tucker wasn't so worried anymore. He used to fear that as soon as this time rolled around that he and his best friends would drift apart, but as the three of them laid lazily in the field after school he realized he didn't see that happening anytime soon.

They talked there for over two hours about everything from classes to the new tour their favorite band was going on. Sam had also gone on for thirty minutes about how dumb Paulina was being in her gym class. Danny was acting kind of weird the whole time, and when he thought about it, Tucker realized he'd been acting a bit off since that night at the restaurant days ago. He made a mental note to ask about it if it kept going on.

The second and third days of school went similarly and ended the same with the three of them hanging out together. Sam always had something to complain about, whether it was Paulina, the school's lack of vegetarian lunch options, or how ninety percent of students only ever talked about the same pop artists.

The fifth day of school students were all talking about something else, something that had even Sam interested. A video had gone viral in Amity Park the previous night that showed some ghost, never seen in Amity before, saving someone from an apartment fire. Tucker didn't think it was as big of a deal as people were making it out to be, no one even knew what the full story was behind the video. Sam was adamant that the video was all the proof ghost hunters should need to recognize that they aren't all the same. The whole time she was talking about it Tucker had noticed that Danny kept trying to change the subject, which was odd, although he could sympathize with him as he'd probably already heard enough about the event from his parents at home.

Sam left a little earlier that day, saying something about wanting to go to the bookstore and find some more dark poetry before they closed for the weekend.

"Are you okay?" Tucker asked a few minutes after she'd gone.

"What?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, no I heard you, just- why would you ask that?"

Tucker shrugged, trying to downplay the fact that he'd been kind of worried all week. "I don't know, you just haven't really seemed entirely yourself this week." With another thought he added, "I hope you aren't sick, because I do _not_ want to end up at a doctor's office if you give it to me."

"I'm not."

"Then what's going on? Your parents get in a fight or something?" He knew that likely _wasn't_ what it was.

The was a long pause before he got any kind of reply.

"Okay, if I tell you this, you've got to promise not to tell anyone."

"Of course, promise." Tucker said, starting to get a little more worried.

"This is gonna sound crazy."

Tucker's phone suddenly started ringing. He saw it was his mom calling and asked Danny to hold on to whatever he was gonna say for a second.

 _"Tucker Maurice Foley where are you? Did you not remember that your grandparents are over for dinner today?"_ Tucker's jaw dropped, "Sorry Mom! I lost track of time! I'm on my way right now!" He started to get up, pulling his backpack on as he finished the call with his mom.

"Dude, I'm sorry, I gotta go _right now_. I'll text you later though!" He felt kind of bad about it, but he didn't need his mom to be any more upset than she already was with him.

The sixth day of school came and went fairly uneventfully. Sam had convinced the school board to try a new cafeteria menu starting that week. They all hung out again after school.

The seventh day of school a ghost attack happened right there at Casper High and both Tucker and Sam had somehow gotten dragged into the mess. They all went home after that to rest from the craziness of the day.

The eighth day of school Danny had ditched hanging out with him and Sam like usual after school, and Tucker's fear began to inch it's way back to him.

* * *

 **A/N: Little bit later than planned on this update, but still got it up today. This is the first chapter that is entirely original and was not in the original Ectoplasmic Secrets at all. Yes, it's a little short unfortunately. Next One will definitely be longer!**

 **Next chapter going to going up Thursday January 3rd!**

 **Thank you for reading/reviewing/favoriting/following! "See" ya next time!**


	13. Mystery Meat

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Mystery Meat_

Summary: A ghost attacks Casper High after being angered by a change the school has made.

* * *

Sam had found herself rather proud of her persuasive skills when she'd been able to convince the school board to try a new vegetarian-friendly cafeteria menu. Of course she knew that not every student at Casper was going to be accepting of this change, but it wasn't like it would be permanent, as the school was only trying it for a week.

She was expecting to hear some complaints and backlash from her peers, but what she wasn't expecting was for the ghost of one of the past cafeteria workers to attack the school.

The ghost had first showed up during lunch. Sam, Tucker, and Danny had been at what had quickly become their new normal lunch table, chatting as usual when Danny had started acting weird again, like he had been for over a week by then. He got up and left before either Sam or Tucker could comment about it. Not a moment later Dash came by the table with his Styrofoam plate full of vegetables.

"This is _your_ fault, Manson!"

"Yeah, and it's your fault you aren't able to keep a C in math." Sam shot back before thinking.

In the back a group of Dash's friends and football teammates were shocked and couldn't help laughing, which only made Dash angrier.

"You wanna say that again Manson? Especially when your boyfriend Fentonio isn't here to protect you?" he said in a low voice. Sam was about to dispute the suggestion that her and Danny were together when a ghost appeared from thin air right behind Dash. All the students quickly became aware of the supernatural entity and backed away, some simply running out of the room, no questions asked.

Dash noticed Sam staring wide eyed behind him and glanced over his shoulder before running full speed out of the cafeteria screaming.

The ghost now in front of Sam looked between her and her plate full of vegetables almost sadly, "Could you children tell me who changed menu?" The voice echoed ominously through the nearly empty cafeteria. The only students left in the room were pushed against the walls, and the few staff members that had been there watched the scene in front of them helplessly, having already called the situation into the front office where they would no doubt call for some paranormal services.

"Yeah. She did" Tucker said automatically. He looked frozen in place in his chair with eyes slightly wider than normal.

"YOU CHANGED THE MENU?!" the ghost woman screamed at Sam, and her loud, echoed voice almost hurt their ears. She wanted to punch Tucker for being such an idiot.

"Uh, yeah. Well, you know, we don't technically _need_ to have meats in our diet…" Sam said slowly. The ghost's eyes narrowed before she switched back to her much sweeter elderly woman's voice.

"Meat is good for you child. It helps you grow and makes you stronger." she said.

"Uh, yeah!" Sam said, breaking out of her usual tone of voice in an attempt to keep the situation bright, "But, vegetables can do that too? Some people, just don't really care for meat, I guess? But who am I to say? It's just my opinion after all, no harm in that, right?"

The ghost's face twisted into a visible scowl. "You need a proper diet! Perhaps _I_ will have to teach it to you."

Before she knew what was happening she heard Tucker yell her name. She only caught a glimpse of the ghost flying towards her, then she felt a chill and saw the cafeteria disappear above her.

* * *

"Sam!" Tucker yelled as the ghost grabbed his friend by the arm and pulled her through the floor. He stared at the spot she'd disappeared in shock. He didn't know what to do, he didn't even know what he _could_ do.

His mind kept reeling, searching for an answer even as the teachers and staff members guided him and the other students outside and away from the building. Sam, who was always going on about how ghosts aren't all bad like most people in Amity thought, had just been _kidnapped_ by a _ghost_. Danny, who had been acting strangely and worrying both his friends for the past week was missing as well, as Tucker was unable to find him in the crowd of students evacuated from the school.

His feet had apparently decided what he was going to do before his mind and he found himself running back into the school, thankfully not being noticed either. He went back to the cafeteria where he knew he'd seen Danny's backpack was left behind.

Tucker's steps all echoed ominously in the abandoned cafeteria and he picked up Danny's backpack, which was open on the table, when he could've sworn his friend had left it closed and on the floor. Pushing that thought aside, he reached for where he knew Danny had always kept a low level ectogun, at his parent's insistence of course, only to find it wasn't there.

"Fuck. Of course the _one_ time we need a ghost weapon, you don't have one." he said to himself.

An idea came to him suddenly and Tucker looked in Sam's bag and nearly cheered when he found an ectogun hidden in _her_ bag.

"Thank you, Sam, for being a hypocrite."

* * *

Sam's day had been getting worse and worse. _First_ she had gotten kidnapped by some ghost ranting about how good meat was for everyone, then she had to sit around the school basement for ten minutes bored out of her mind while the ghost had gone off to find good meats, and _now_ she was trying to force Sam to actually try the food she'd brought back?! No way. That just wouldn't do.

"What is your issue? Not everyone has to agree with you, you know!" Sam shouted from her place on top of a large stack of crates. The only thing keeping her there was the thought that if she jumped, she'd probably break her leg or something. The ghost floating around her seemed to be put off by Sam's latest remark and yelled as she kicked one of the crates. The stack wobbled and Sam grasped tightly onto the edge of the top crate before it settled down again.

"Why won't you try it, child?!" she yelled with rage pouring into her eyes and words. Sam scowled, "I've been on this healthy _vegetarian_ diet for _five_ _years_! Like _hell_ I'm going to fuck it all up _now_!"

The ghost screamed with making it feel like the air itself shook, "Five years of malnutrition?! You will eat it whether you want to or not, child! It is for your own good!"

Her voice suddenly calmed almost comically, "Chicken, or fish?"

"Pass." Sam said flatly. _Honestly, as much I despise ghost hunters for what they do, would it kill them to get here a little faster?_

"Aaaaauuuggghhh!" The ghost yelled in frustration, punching her fist into one of the boxes near the bottom. Almost instantly, Sam regretted sass talking the bipolar ghost. The tower of boxes leaned just a hair too far and they all came apart before crashing towards the ground. Sam instinctively closed her eyes at the feeling of weightlessness. She waited and waited to hit the ground as time seemed to slow down a little bit, but it never came. She never felt the cold tiled floor, nor the hard wood of one of the giant crates, no, instead her descent was cushioned and fingers curled over her knee and shoulder. Her stomach twisted a little when she was suddenly jerked back into motion. Wind whipped through her short black hair before disappearing completely, only to be replaced with a cold shiver running through her whole body.

She peeked her eyes open to find she was surrounded by some crates and pipes. Obviously she was still in the school basement, but she couldn't see the ghost woman anymore, only hear her cries of frustration. Realizing that she had no idea who was holding her, Sam quickly jumped down and backed away a few steps before turning and coming face to face with the ghost that had stolen everyone in town's attention over the past week.

"You…You…saved me."

* * *

Danny tensed, not knowing if Sam would recognize him or not. Her eyes widened suddenly and he feared that she had. Not like he could blame her, he didn't look extremely different. White hair, sticking up at the same odd angles as when it was raven black, and blue eyes lit up green. The outfit was different, which was weird, but since he'd been in a panicked rush when he'd transformed, he hadn't the time to question the black shirt and pants and white gloves and boots. All of his focus at the time had been on making sure that ghost he'd sensed didn't get the chance to hurt his friends. _So much that did,_ he thought, looking at Sam standing in front of him, having just been kidnapped by said ghost.

"You're the ghost from that video that went viral last week."

Well, she'd recognized him, but thankfully not in the way he'd thought she was going to.

"Help! Somebody!" another voice yelled from the other end of the basement, and Danny realized it sounded an awful lot like Tucker. Sam realized it too, "Shit- shit, that sounded like Tucker- er, my friend!"

"Um, just stay here" Danny said, before flying off a little shakily as he was still trying to get used to the feeling. In the distance he listened as Sam shouted something in protest.

While heading in what he believed to be Tucker's direction, he couldn't help but wonder what the hell he was doing, or was going to do when he got there.

* * *

Tucker was usually not a daring type of guy. Typically he lived his life a safe distance away from the edge, but people do crazy things with the right motivation. His motivation was the fact that at least one, possibly both of his best friends were stuck in the school somewhere with a ghost that seemed to be of their rocker. Although if he was being honest, he didn't share the same views as Sam and thought that all ghosts were at least a little crazy.

He supposed he might be able to find out the truth himself soon enough if he kept up with his insane mission to find his friends.

Creeping into the school basement and around a pile of toppled crates, Tucker made sure his finger was ready on the trigger of the ectogun. He flinched as something moved, but his eyes couldn't lock onto any form, that is, until the ghost slowly faded into visibility, staring directly at him.

She took a step towards him. Then another. And after the third step Tucker aimed and fired.

The ghost woman took a direct hit from the ectogun and looked a little hurt by it, but recovered quickly. It seemed the low power ectogun wasn't enough to stop the ghost, actually it did quite the opposite, Tucker realized, as the ghost more than doubled in size and her calm face turned to anger.

"Help! Somebody!" he yelled, hoping there were any ghost hunters that had managed to get there by then.

He watched as the ghost raised her arms and meats from inside some of the crates flew into the air. In any other situation, Tucker would've called that Heaven, but there was a very pissed off cafeteria worker's ghost behind all of it, and that made it Hell. She pulled all of the meats towards herself and with a flash of light, she was transformed into a giant meat monster.

Doing what any sane person in his shoes would do, Tucker decided to run. He knew there was no way he was faster than her, but it was all he could do.

He could hear every one of her thundering footsteps getting closer, until they were interrupted by a large blast. After he'd found he'd ran into a dead end, Tucker turned around and saw the ghost had gotten hit with another shot from an ectogun, but not his, or technically, Sam's. For a second his mind concluded that some hunters must've gotten there and taken that shot at the ghost, but then he saw the second ghost standing on top of one of the stacks of crates, holding an ectogun aimed at the meat monster ghost.

* * *

There was no way Sam was going to just stay put.

"Hey!" she yelled as the ghost who'd possibly just saved her life, or at least saved her from what could've been a serious injury, flew off in the direction of Tucker's call for help. Speaking of Tucker, she was gonna chew his ear off for being a _fucking idiot_ and coming after her, or at least she'd assumed that was why he was there. That would have to wait, though.

"No way am I staying here! You hear me, whatever your name is?!" She began running in the same way the ghost had gone, wishing for a moment that she'd been able to get the ectogun she had hidden in her backpack before getting pulled down there to the basement. Neither Tucker nor Danny knew she kept one there, but hey, one could never be too safe when living in Amity Park.

She was breathing hard as she continued her sprint, following the sounds she was hearing echo through the room. Then there was a loud blast, and Sam worried.

Coming around one last corner, she thankfully caught sight of Tucker, who was staring up, and ran the last of the distance to get to him.

"Tucker!" she yelled.

He looked over, seemingly surprised and relieved, "Sam! Are you okay?!"

She stopped, breathing heavy and heart pounding. Her throat stung. "Yeah, come on, we gotta go!"

There was a yell from the side of her that got closer and closer until the ghost from before landed on the ground, half in the room still, and half inside the wall. She heard Tucker swear in surprise as she took the ghost's hands and pulled him out of the wall without really thinking.

"Getting help from malnourished little human friends?!"

Before she could realize it, something was wrapping itself around her.

* * *

Danny could only stare as the ghost turned her attention on Sam and Tucker, picking them up in her meaty hand.

"Now they can be an example to all the other students who plan on changing the menu!"

"Hey!" Tucker yelled, "I didn't even want the menu to be changed! That was her idea!"

The ghost didn't seemed to care as she took the two and flew outside.

Danny, who was still on the ground, panicked at the fact she'd targeted Sam and Tucker. They hadn't even done anything, they were just there. Why were they even there? How had _they_ gotten roped into all this, out of all the other kids in the school it could've been instead?

He got up and flew outside after the ghost.

* * *

Jasmine Fenton just wished the day could've been a normal one. She'd been engaged in a deep conversation with Spike, a boy in her grade who'd been having some trouble at home, and was just about to convince him to open up to his parents when suddenly all the students were being led out into the parking lot away from the school.

For a few minutes she hadn't know what was going on, that is, until she heard people in the crowd whispering things about a ghost attacking in the school somewhere. Then she became worried.

She wasn't worried so much about yet another crazy ghost on the loose, she knew they'd stop it, but she was worried about her little brother, who attended the same school, and who she was unable to find in the crowd after several minutes.

Her parents showed up before she could do anything dumb trying to find him. They'd immediately gotten out of the RV and found Jazz before asking where their youngest child was. She couldn't answer, she hadn't a clue.

Not a moment later a giant meat monster flew out of the ground from underneath the school, and in it's fist, Danny's two friends, Tucker and Sam. Her parents saw them too.

"Tucker! Sam! Don't worry kids, you'll be alright!" Maddie shouted as Jack handed her a weapon. Somehow, Jazz doubted it. They were at least a good forty feet in the air and it didn't look like the ghost was gong to just set them down nicely on the ground. She doubted they'd be alright, but there was nothing she could do about it.

"Let them go!" someone yelled. Jazz couldn't see who it was through the crowd but the voice sounded just slightly familiar.

"You again, child?!" the meat monster ghost said, "You need manners to learn how to stop interrupting!"

Some loud crashes followed those words, although Jazz couldn't really see anything that was going on. She knew though, that whatever was happening had even managed to surprise her parents as they looked at one another, baffled.

* * *

Would Danny say he was regretting his plan, or lack of a plan? Yes. Very much.

He'd gotten the ghost's attention again, but it had done nothing to free Sam and Tucker. She was attacking him, using only one arm, and somehow she still hand the _upper hand, ha._

The giant fist flew at him again but he moved out of the way just in time. She may have been a giant meat monster, but she wasn't very quick when it came down to it. Seeing an opportunity, Danny fired a shot from the ectogun he still had at one of her legs, causing her to begin to topple over. Instinctively she opened her other fist and brought both hands down to catch herself.

He watched as gravity began to take hold of his two friends and raced towards them. Their screams were barely audible over the ghost's roar as she crashed to the ground.

A moment before Sam and Tucker hit the ground, he crashed into them, pulling all three of them down.

"Ugh." Sam said, sitting up and rubbing her arm. There'd likely be a bruise, but it would've been worse if they'd fallen straight down. Tucker opened his eyes next, "Are we alive?"

"For now." Danny said, eyeing the ghost who was beginning to get back up, "Come on, I've gotta get you guys out of here."

All three of them got up and started moving. There was another roar behind them and suddenly Danny couldn't move as he was pulled away from his friends, who were thankfully still running the opposite way. Within a moment he was face to face with the ghost as her big glowing green eyes met his and narrowed. She pulled her fist back and threw him through the air like a pitcher and a baseball.

The ground below him was a blur, but her somehow managed to slow himself down a bit before slamming into the side of the RV and falling to the ground with a thud. As he sat up, he registered his shoulder and back aching painfully.

"Jack don't worry about that one right now, let's focus on the bigger threat! Look! It's let go of the kids!"

"So we've got a clear shot now."

He heard as his parents began to fire at the other ghost. Danny glanced around a bit when his eyes met with the wide, slightly fearful teal gaze of his sister. Did she know? Could she see through his ghostly appearance? He didn't know.

The sun came out from behind a cloud and reflected brightly off of something metal his parents had sitting out, and Danny got an idea.

* * *

Tucker kept running, struggling to keep up with Sam. He wasn't meant for athletics, that much was clear.

They continued going, getting closer and closer to where the rest of the student were.

"What the hell, Sam?!"

"What?!" she yelled behind her.

"What the hell were you thinking?! You didn't even _try_ to run from that ghost in the cafeteria!"

"Hey! I didn't know if running was gonna make the situation worse! Besides, I should be asking you the same thing! What the hell were _you_ thinking, coming back into the school?!"

They were almost there.

"You were kidnapped by a freaking ghost, and then I couldn't find Danny either! What was I supposed to do?!"

"Wait, Danny's not here?" she asked.

They had made it to where the rest of the students, teachers, and staff were gathered. Lancer saw them.

" _Great Gatsby_! There you two are!" Lancer said, and much to their dismay, pulled them along with him towards the rest of the classes. They passed the Fenton parents on their way and overheard Maddie.

"Evil, conniving, scumbag ghost! Jack, it stole one of our thermoses!"

Tucker looked over the heads of people in the crowd and saw a blue beam of light cast over the meat monster.

"I'll be back for _you,_ you little phantom!" the ghost screamed.

She fought against the pull tooth and nail, but soon the meats began to shed away, falling to the ground, and the ghost disappeared in the blue light.

* * *

Everything calmed down after that.

Maddie and Jack were unnerved by the fact that the new ghost in Amity Park had stolen one of their special ghost catching thermoses. They couldn't understand what it wanted with the other ghost, nor why the two had fought in the first place. It was also concerning to them that said ghost had managed to escape, disappearing like it had never even been there in the first place. No traces or trails to follow, just gone.

Tucker had been getting more and more worried after the attack all the way until Danny had finally found him and Sam outside. Later on Sam had found out he'd gone digging through her backpack to find that ectogun, and she'd chewed his ear off about it, saying it was an invasion of her privacy and that she'd had a very good reason for carrying the ghost weapon around.

Jazz hadn't known what to think at the end of the day. She'd come face to face with a ghost, although that in itself wasn't all that weird and hadn't been the first time it happened. What she couldn't shake was how _different_ that ghost was compared to other ones.

Sam had been glad that she now had solid proof that not all ghosts are mindless evil things, however, she wouldn't admit it, but at the time when she was captured by the cafeteria worker ghost, she had been pretty terrified, probably almost the most she'd ever been in her life before. When her friends asked about it later she tried to make it seem like it wasn't a big deal.

Danny had hidden the thermos in his backpack after the incident and made up the story the he had been in the bathroom when the attack started and had just hid there the rest of the time. He'd found his friends later and felt guilty looking at all the bruises and small cuts they'd gotten. He knew then, that he didn't want them getting involved in anything ghost related like that again, and if that meant even keeping them away from the ghost side of himself, that seemed it wasn't going away anytime soon, then so be it.

* * *

 **A/N: WHOA. A solid 4,000 word chapter! That might be a new record for me!**

 **So, the plan I've got now is to alternate between doing one chapter based on an episode (like this one) and one chapter that's an original oneshot focused on something or someone else. Sound good? Oh, and if you have any episode(s) in particular that you want me to do a chapter like this on, please comment it in the review section, as I likely will not be doing every single episode. :)**

 **Next chapter will be up next Friday, January 11th. I'm sorry it's a bit of a wait, but it's because I'm starting second semester of senior year this Monday, and I'll need a little extra time to allow myself to get used to my new schedule, plan future chapters, and maybe get a few buffer chapters written.**

 **Thank you so much for reading/favoriting/following/reviewing! 'See' ya soon! :)**


	14. Possession

Whoa! Lots of reviews since the last update, thank you guys so much! Here are the replies:

 **MsFrizzle:** I just realized I never replied to your reply on the chapter, Contract, so apologies for that! At the time I was just focusing on getting up all those chapters that were already set to go. Anyways, glad you liked that bit, it's always seemed unrealistic that in the show, funding for their research was never even a conceivable issue XD

 **Guest:** Omg! Now I feel bad because you've just caught up and those other stories are on hiatus! D: You've inspired me now though, so I'll try to finish up What Life is Like in Amity Park when I get settled with this story :) I hear your request and One of a Kind is up next! It's actually already written at the time this is being uploaded, just got to edit and wait for posting day. Happy New Year to you as well, and no worries, I love a good long review! Thank you!

 **Rush721:** Haha, I hear your request and have plenty of Vlad chapters planned now! He's such a fun character to write and I always find it interesting how everyone in this Phandom writes Vlad differently :)

 **Pheek:** I'm glad you're liking it so far!

 **Tsuki Yosuke:** Glad you enjoyed that chapter! I'll be trying to do more similar to it!

* * *

 **Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Possession_

Summary: Danny accidentally figures out that the ability of possession came included in his package of ghostly attributes.

* * *

Danny flew through the hallways of Casper High invisibly. He had about thirty seconds to get to his class that had been on the opposite side of the school.

It was odd, he realized, that he could use these ghostly abilities so casually by then. It had only been just over two weeks since the portal incident, but it felt like it was so much longer. He remembered that the first couple days alone had felt like weeks. A lot had happened since then.

Sometime during the first week he had been out and had come across the apartment fire. It hadn't taken him long to figure out that he could pull the person who was trapped out of there much easier and much safer than a firefighter could. It had just felt like the obvious thing to do. He hadn't even found out until two days later that a bystander had filmed the whole encounter and uploaded it online.

Early into the next week that ghost had attacked the school, and really, what had he been supposed to do? Sit back and let them hurt Sam and Tucker? _Obviously not._ The following days people across town started connecting that it had been the same ghost at both incidents. Some of them had began to wonder after that, sparking all kinds of debates. They wondered if a ghost even _could_ have good intentions.

Danny wondered the same thing because, could he even really be called a ghost? He knew he'd gained many characteristics that only ghosts could have, but last he'd checked, ghosts didn't need to breath or have a heartbeat either.

He flew around another corner, racing against the clock. He had to account also for the time it took to hide somewhere nearby, change back, then walk ( _or run_ ) into class. While he was zipping through the hall, he didn't notice Dash turn the corner to his left, right into his path.

They collided before Danny could do much of anything, but they didn't just crash into each other and fall down, nor did Danny pass through Dash intangibly. Instead it seemed like they got tied to one another. Somewhere right in the middle of colliding both tangibly and intangibly.

Everything was black for a second.

Danny opened his eyes and knew something had happened because he didn't remember his eyes being this particular height from the ground. He looked down at himself, only to find it _wasn't_ himself.

He looked at the tight black T shirt and the red and white Letterman jacket. Not-his body felt weird, like wearing clothes that are too big for you.

"Holy shit" he said, not-his voice cracking. "I'm possessing-"

"Dash!" another voice cut in. He recognized it as Kwan and turned to see the other jock jogging up to him.

"Come on, man, we're gonna be late!"

 _I really am. I'm possessing Dash fucking Baxter. Great. Just Great._ Danny could only watch and comply as Kwan dragged what he thought was his best bud into their math class. He didn't know what to do, how to get out of Dash's body, or how he'd possessed him in the first place.

Trying not to freak out to much, he figured he'd just have to go along with the strange situation until he could figure out what to do.

Participating in Dash's math class proved to be pretty easy. It was interacting with Dash's friends and pretending to _be_ him that was difficult. Oh why, _of all people_ did it have to be Dash Baxter that he'd _literally_ run into.

"So what nerd are you cheating off?" Kwan asked, more than halfway through the class.

He was about to say he wasn't before realizing it wouldn't be characteristic of Dash to get that many answers right on the book work without any help. He quickly spared a glance around, recognizing a few of the kids in the class.

"Uh, Lester" he whispered, or tried to anyway, it was weird controlling a voice that wasn't his own.

"Huh. Didn't think he was that good for math answers, better for history or English in my opinion."

Danny didn't even know how to answer that.

"You sure it's safe to be getting that many right? If you get caught again your dad's gonna be _more_ than pissed."

He wasn't quite sure what to make of that comment, but ended up changing a few answers to wrong anyways. For a minute something had started pushing him lightly before fading away again.

After that class Danny was beginning to worry more as he was still stuck inside Dash's body with no ideas on how to leave.

He let Kwan guide where they were supposed to be going next, as he hadn't a clue what Dash's schedule was. Kwan kept talking about things he couldn't understand the whole way. Danny continued to hum and nod and agree with whatever the other boy was saying, focusing more on figuring out where they were going.

When they were almost there it became obvious to Danny. The locker room. A sense of dread set it. Math class had been bearable, but Danny definitely did not want to go through Dash's gym class for him. The worst thought was that he'd be asked to change out into the school gym clothes. Changing out in a locker room full of people in your own body was one thing, doing it in somebody else's was a whole other thing. He didn't want to do it, and he'd bet that if Dash were there, he wouldn't want him to do it either, and as much as he hated Dash, he wouldn't blame the guy. It just seemed like crossing a line.

Thankfully, Danny realized something. "Um, you know what? I forgot my locker combo, so I guess I'm just not gonna change out today." At least it was kind of true, Danny in fact didn't know what Dash's locker combo even could be.

Kwan sighed, "Really?" Before proceeding to open Dash's locker.

Danny stared at the open locker.

"Well? Coach is gonna be here soon, you better get moving" Kwan said, pulling on his own gym shirt.

He started to pull off Dash's trademark jacket while trying to come up with a new plan to get out of having to change. The pushing he'd felt before returned.

"Whoa, dude!" Kwan said in a hushed voice, sounding very surprised, "What are you doing?"

Danny didn't know what to say.

"I thought you didn't want anyone to see the scar!" Kwan said with his voice still very low so no one else in the room would hear.

 _Guess you've got some secrets of your own then, Dash._

The push against him was more forceful this time and Danny realized quickly that it was beginning to undo the intangible knot that held them together. He didn't think twice to seize the opportunity and somehow pulled the knot the rest of the way.

Before he knew it he was floating invisibly and couple feet away from Dash and Kwan.

"Huh? Kwan? What am I doing here?"

Danny flew out of the locker room and towards his second hour class. He supposed he could add possession to the list of all things ghostly that he could do now, although he was pretty sure he didn't want to do that again anytime soon.

* * *

 **A/N: Hello! Yes, I'm technically putting this up on Thursday night, even though I said it would be up on Friday. Decided to tonight instead since I've got the time now, and won't when I'm at school tomorrow, so yay! Slightly early upload!**

 **Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Since I'm not doing a rewrite for Parental Bonding, and that was the episode that introduced possession/overshadowing as a power that Danny had, I decided to write this. The first person he ever overshadowed in the series was Dash, so I thought, why not stick with that?**

 **Next chapter will be going up a week from when this was supposed to be uploaded, meaning Friday, January 18th.**

 **Thank you so much for reading/favoriting/following/reviewing! "See" ya next time!**


	15. One of a Kind

**! UPDATE (2-2-19) IS LOCATED IN THE AUTHORS NOTE AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER**

Here's the reply to the review left last chapter:

 **Sterling Young:** Glad you're liking it! :)

* * *

 **Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _One of a Kind_

Summary: A ghost visits Amity Park after hearing rumors of the halfa who lives there.

* * *

Skulker had heard enough bits of the rumors to piece them together. First he'd heard it from some of the regular visitors of Amity Park, and then an elderly ghost woman had come rushing back into the Infinite Realms claiming the rumors were true. She told stories about how this creature had taken her down and sucked her into a tiny contraption where she'd known nothing but darkness for hours before she'd been thrown back into the Infinite Realms. That had piqued Skulker's interests. For the following week stories and gossip continued to roll in from ghosts who had either spotted the creature or been captured and sent back by it.

Skulker floated a safe distance away and pulled out his binoculars. He'd tracked the creature to this location and was about to finally get his first look at his new prey.

He zoomed in and saw the pesky Box Ghost saying something he couldn't hear and gesturing wildly. Searching a little more around the room his view finally settled.

But it couldn't be.

Skulker didn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't to see that the half breed everyone had been talking about was a mere child.

For a moment he thought he might've made a mistake until he saw the ghost child pull out some sort of device and trapped the box ghost in it. Then he was sure.

"So, the half breed _is_ a child. Doesn't change anything. He's still half human, half ghost. One of a kind." And Skulker's new prey.

* * *

Danny supposed it had all started when he'd gotten a bad grade on his first biology test of the semester. He'd gotten a D thanks to all the late nights he'd had recently, and he knew if his parents heard about it, they'd be furious. After all, the Fenton's were supposed to be a family of geniuses.

He'd told his friends about his problem later that day, or at least the part of the problem that didn't involve late nights and ghost fights. Sam then suggested doing the extra credit assignment that was given. It was easy, just go to the local zoo, pick an animal, do a little research and observe, then write a paper on what you learned. Sam and Tucker had even offered to go with him after school.

The three of them were at the zoo that afternoon for a few hours. Danny had decided to write his paper on the purple back gorilla that was there, having done a bit of research beforehand at the school library. Sam had been in rebellious-activist mode most of the while that they were at the zoo, claiming all the animals deserved to live free and in the wild. Tucker was just there to tag along and had nearly fallen asleep at least three times.

It was sunset then, and just as Danny had nearly finished his paper, something began to happen. All the animals in the zoo started acting up at the same time, sensing something that people couldn't see yet. A couple minutes after that some staff members of the zoo began coming around to all the exhibits, asking people to clear the area temporarily.

"What's going on?"

"We just need to clear the exhibits temporarily. Everyone, please proceed to the exits in an orderly fashion."

Already with a good feeling of what was going on, Danny had been able to slip away from his two friends, and the rest of the people for that matter, fairly easily.

In his ghost form, Danny took a look around the area invisibly. For probably around five minutes he found nothing until a small, high pitched beep sounded from a few feet away, and he was confronted by a huge robotic ghost.

The robotic ghost stood tall, at least seven feet, possibly more, and had a flaming green mohawk. "Ah, the human ghost child in its natural habitat."

"Okay, who are you, and why should I care?" Danny asked.

The ghost seemed unfazed by the snideness. "I am Skulker, the Ghost Zone's _greatest_ hunter. I collect the most rare and unique, and _you_ , ghost child, are _that_."

Before anything else could be said, a sleek, expensive government car pulled up to the side of them, and then another from the other direction. Danny had seen those cars at his own family's house too many times to not know what they meant. He also knew for a fact that he did not want to stick around long enough to see the wrong end of an ectogun.

"The hunter will not become the hunted" Skulker mumbled, "Stay alert ghost child. The hunt is now on."

Danny watched as Skulker vanished in front of him and wasted no time in doing the same.

He heard the car doors and the voices behind him yelling as he flew away from the area that was quickly crawling with GIW agents.

Figuring the ghost was gone at least temporarily, Danny went back to the crowd of people near the exit of the zoo, changed back into his regular form and found Sam and Tucker. Thankfully they'd bought the excuse that he'd just gotten separated from them in the crowd.

The rest of the night was tense for Danny. As he was walking down the street to his house, having dinner with his parents and sister, and finishing his extra credit paper while listening to the interview his mom was doing with someone from Genius Magazine downstairs, he was constantly expecting Skulker to show up at any moment. He'd tried to stay awake as long as he could that night, but eventually his eyes had drifted closed as result of the sleep he'd already been lacking from nights before.

The next morning went similarly, with Danny looking over his shoulder every so many seconds.

It wasn't until lunch time that anything happened.

* * *

The three of them had chosen to sit outside again, like they and many other students had been since the cafeteria worker's ghost had attacked.

While the three of them had been sitting there peacefully, just trying to get some social time before their next class, Skulker had appeared out of the blue. All the students were shocked that another ghost was attacking at the school, since before the lunch lady incident there were hardly any supernatural events ever recorded at the school.

The moment Skulker appeared and set his sights on Danny, the boy hadn't known what to do. It wasn't like he could change forms right in front of all those people, or right in front of Sam and Tucker. Luckily the ghost was easily distracted by the shiny device in Tucker's hands and snatched it away, forgetting about the half ghost for a few seconds.

"This technology. So sleek, so...advanced." Skulker said and looked between Tucker's phone and some of the faulty old screens on his metallic arm, "hmm, I wonder..."

With no warning, Skulker suddenly smashed the phone in his hand into his arm. Wires flowed and snapped into place as Tucker's jaw dropped in horror.

"Hey! I got three more payments on that!"

Skulker could care less about the human boy's financial problem and easily shoved him away.

"Tuck!" Danny yelled instinctively.

Skulker grinned and set his eyes back on his target. "Now, where were we?"

A little electric tune sounded and Skulker flared at the stolen technology in his arm. "Go to geometry?" he read questioningly. A jet pack burst out of the ghosts back and within a couple seconds he was flying away to another part of the school uncontrollably.

Through the weirdness of that event and the fact that Tucker mentioned he'd put his whole daily schedule into his phone, Danny eventually figured out that Skulker had become bound to Tucker's schedule.

Definitely not good.

* * *

Skulker suppressed the urge to groan out loud, as that would give away his location. He was floating invisibly in the technology boy's house, watching as the table was being set with dishes and silverware. They were late. The infernal piece of technology, that Skulker was now regretting having stolen, had said that there would be "Mom's Meatloaf" at seven thirty.

Skulker couldn't physically leave. He was forced through that glitch in his suit's systems to stay on the technology boy's same schedule. Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to disconnect the infernal device yet, although he was trying. He'd much rather be out there hunting down that half breed. _Speaking of the half breed..._ Skulker had quickly realized the technology boy and his prey were likely acquaintances, so even if he did remain stuck to this boy's schedule, they'd meet again sometime soon.

The ghost watched invisibly as the family of three sat down at the table and finally dig into a steaming meatloaf. They were twelve minutes late.

Then an idea came to him.

Skulker paid little mind to the terrified screams of all three of the family members as he suddenly revealed his form. They all froze when he pointed a gun to the young one's head.

"You. I demand that you _remove_ this infernal piece of technology!"

"Wh-What?" the boy asked timidly.

Skulker sneered, "This!" he yelled, gesturing to the boy's device that was stuck in his suit's arm, "This infernal thing has me bound to _your_ schedule, so remove it so that _I_ , Skulker, may go back to being the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter!"

"Is that actually a real title? Or did you just give it to yourself?"

* * *

Danny had been waiting a while. He'd known that Skulker was still around Tucker because of his ghost sense, but he was choosing to stay invisible. Ever since he'd figured out what Tucker's phone had done to the ghost earlier that day, he'd been secretly going to wherever Tucker's schedule said, whenever it said it.

That time, however, Skulker had finally shown himself and ended up demanding that Tucker take the phone off while holding a gun to his head. That sight had frozen in his tracks, especially as he realized that _yet again_ on of his friends were in danger because of a ghost, and one that was after him, no less. If it wasn't for him being this- _this whatever_ , Tucker never would be in the situation he was in at the moment.

Skulker began rambling on again about how he was apparently the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter and Danny realized the ghost's ego seemed to be through the roof. He let his invisibility down noticing how Mr. Foley's eyes widened even more.

"Is that actually a real title? Or did you just give it to yourself?" he asked, feeling oddly relieved when Skulker immediately turned his aim away from Tucker and on him instead.

"Of course it's a real title. You shall not get away with such an insult, ghost child." Skulker said with a sneer. The large, supernaturally powered gun aimed at Danny made a high pitched whine that grew with each fleeting moment. "Now, ghost child, say-"

"Who gave it to you then? Cause I'm just saying, it really doesn't sound very _official_ , no offense." Danny asked, while trying to think of what to do. The three Foleys were still too close for comfort, and it wasn't like there was much room to move out of the way of a shot in the small dining room. He had the thermos, but knew it likely wouldn't work if he tried to use it then, Skulker was too strong. It had barely managed to trap the cafeteria worker's ghost the week before, and that had been after she'd already taken some hits. He also still had the small ectogun, but that was like a slingshot and pebbles compared to Skulker's arsenal.

"What?" the ghost asked, wondering for a moment if he'd heard correctly. "How dare you doubt _me_ , _Skulker_!"

Skulker's mechanical hand flew forward and grabbed Danny's collar, pulling him forward from where he'd been floating. His other hand pulled back into a steel fist, the gun having disappeared back into his armor for the time being.

Danny winced, expecting a hard blow to the left side of his face. Weirdly enough the only thing unfamiliar about the situation was that he was currently a ghost, or kind of a ghost, and that Skulker wasn't actually Dash or some other jock.

After a second of waiting, he realized the metal fist had frozen in place, and when he looked he found that Skulker himself looked like he was on a TV screen that had been paused. The only thing different was that the flames that made his fiery mohawk had extinguished and the green light in his eyes had gone out, leaving just empty holes in the metal head.

Danny quickly phased out of the ghost's grip and stumbled backwards, looking at the frozen hunk of metal in confusion.

"Sweet! It worked!" Tucker yelled. "What worked? _What_ on _earth_ happened?" Mrs. Foley asked, looking between Skulker, Danny, and her son with worry and fear etched on her face.

"He said he was bound to my schedule, so I just went on here," Tucker said, gesturing to his laptop which he had pulled from who knows where, "put 'shut down' into my schedule and beamed the updated version to my phone."

Danny grinned, of course Tucker would be able to figure out how to do that, he was the most tech smart person he'd ever known. There was a noise of metal scratching and clanking and he turned to see the top of the metal head open and a little green blob-like creature pop out.

"My suit! You will pay for what you have done ghost child!" Skulker yelled, his voice now tiny and scratchy. Danny almost laughed as he pulled out the thermos and aimed it at the ghost. As Skulker was being sucked into the device, he kept yelling.

"You haven't seen the last of me ghost child! Do you hear me?! The hunt is not over!"

The empty metal armor got pulled into the thermos as well and Danny put the cap on and glanced at the three Foleys. They each had something different written on their faces when he looked at them. Mrs. Foley showed fear in her wide brown eyes, Mr. Foley made a look of defensiveness as he subtly placed himself in between Danny and his wife and son, and Tucker's face wore a mask of uncertainty as if questioning whether or not he should be afraid. It was strange, uncomfortable even, to see all three of them look at him like that. Of course they didn't know it, but they were like his second family.

Looking away from them, he simply said, "Sorry about all this" and vanished before leaving the house, knowing that Skulker wouldn't be following Tucker anymore.

* * *

 **A/N: Hello! Hope you guys enjoyed this alternate version of the episode! Sorry the writing quality seems to have dipped a bit, especially in the first half of the chapter. I might go back and edit again another time.**

 **Unfortunately I've been rather busy lately and haven't been able to write for this much, so I'm going to have to push the posting date for the next chapter to Tuesday, January 29th. I was intending on it simply being next Friday originally, but I figured this way should allow me to get a buffer chapter written and will provide less stress. Hopefully you all can understand this.**

 **! UPDATE (2-2-19): I'm very sorry I was unable to make the previous upload date i had scheduled. It just seems like every minute of my time has been devoted to something else these past two weeks. Hoping to make the new upload date of Wednesday February 20th. I've put it farther out so that it is more reachable and because I'll be away on a family trip next week.**

 **Thank you all for reading/reviewing/favoriting/following! "See" ya next time!**


	16. Motive

Here's the replies to the reviews left on the last chapter:

 **Dianasaur101:** I'm glad you're enjoying it thus far! I've read a couple of other Nobody Knows AU's, some are finished, some are unfinished, if you are interested in this AU and want to read other's takes on it as well I could make a small rec list :) Yes, I'm keeping it kind of light here at the beginning, but fair warning, I do plan on eventually taking a bit darker turns (something I wish the actual show had done as the characters got older). Thanks for the review! Hopefully I'll hear from you again sometime! :)

 **Guest:** Hello! Thank you for your understanding! I'll try not to have too many delays like this one in the future lol. Also, glad you liked them in the last chapter! :)

* * *

 **Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Motive_

Summary: Greg Axel, director of the GIW is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure no one else will have to go through what he did.

* * *

 _The sun was long gone, the sky a shade of inky black. There was no moon visible, making the suburban street even darker than on any other night. All of the warmly glowing orange street lights were out, along with the light from every house on the road. A chill lingered in the air that caused a shiver to run up Greg's spine. The young man was baffled as to why the electricity would have gone out, seeing as there were no storms around that day. He only hoped it hadn't caused much distress at home, that was the last thing Cynthia needed, seeing as she was due for their second child in just a few weeks._

 _Greg unlocks the front door and it creaks as he forces it open. There is not a spec of light coming from within nor a single sound. Perhaps Cynthia and Ben were just in the kitchen, or the bedroom. For whatever reason, he glanced at the wood flooring just inside the doorway._

 _Light from a passing car's headlights briefly illuminated the hallway, casting odd shadows that moved like serpents. A patch of light slithered along and Greg's eyes caught onto the slimy green substance spotting the hardwood floor._

* * *

"Greg?"

He was snapped out of his thoughts and glanced up at his colleague, Mike, who was looking at him expectantly. "What was that?" Greg asked.

"Your thoughts? On the plan?"

Greg nodded and skimmed his eyes over the papers in his hands for the fifth time. It was the plan they were proposing to him for any and all Ghost Zone expeditions for the next three years.

"No manned missions until over two years from now you say?" he asked with a bit of disappointment laced in his voice.

Mike tensed a little, "Yes, well precautions need to be taken. It'll take dozens of drone testing missions before we will even know if it's safe for humans to-"

Greg's voice raised a bit, "Well then get the tests done faster! We _need_ manned missions within a year!"

"Sir," Mike became slightly defensive, "I wish that we could, but it's just not possible realistically speaking."

Greg relaxed again and chuckled softly. "Realistically." He said, "In this organization we have agents and engineers, and scientists pushing the boundaries of what is possible everyday. The technology they're creating today would have been unfathomable even just five years ago. And do you know why all these people are doing this?"

Mike remained quiet.

"They're doing this, _we_ are doing this so that those murderous pests can be exterminated, _and so no one else will have to go home to find their families torn apart by something that shouldn't even exist in the first place!_ " By the time Greg finished he was yelling. He took a breath and calmed himself. "The sooner we can learn about their filthy world, is the sooner we'll be able to find a way and get rid of every. Last. One."

Greg looked at Mike, who had averted his eyes during Greg's spiel. "So tell me Mike, when can we begin manned missions to the Ghost Zone?" His voice was calm but clearly hid frustration and anger just beneath the surface.

Mike stuttered slightly at first, "I-I'll have to t-talk to many, many people to be sure, b-but with all hands on deck we should be able to in around 14 months. That's November of next year."

Greg breathed in and nodded slowly. "I suppose that's better. Now get to work, I expect to see a revised version of that plan of yours on my desk by Friday."

* * *

 **A/N: So sorry for the delay! If there ever are more delays like that in the future (and I'll be honest, there probably will be, because that's just life) then you can always check the A/N on the latest chapter, where I'll always try to give news on new posting dates :)**

 **Does anyone use the FanFiction app and know how to add the lines/dividers in chapters? Or is it just something you can only do on the computer? I haven't been able to find that function on the app lol.**

 **Posting date for the next chapter currently is Tuesday March 5th!**

 **Thank you all for reading/reviewing/favoriting/following! "See" ya next time!**


	17. Splitting Images

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _Splitting Images_

Summary: Summary: The ghost of a deceased student from Casper High mistakes Danny for the typical high school bully and Dash for an innocent nerd.

* * *

"Man, it sucks that your locker was destroyed. And by the freaking _Box Ghost!_ "

Danny sighed, Tucker was right, it did suck, mostly because his old locker had been practically right next to his two best friends'. It had been easier that way to spend more time with them between classes...but wait, wasn't he actually trying to avoid them currently? _Well then maybe it's not such a bad thing after all..._

"Yeah, the Box Ghost is a joke, everyone in Amity Park knows that." Sam said, "So where's your new locker?"

"Pretty much on the other side of the school. It's number, uh, 724." Danny said, rereading the note the office had given him.

Tucker looked surprised by that. "No way.."

"What?" Danny asked, confused.

Sam took the liberty to explain, as apparently she was in on whatever it was as well. "It's an urban legend around here. They say locker 724 used to belong to this kid, Sydney Pointdexter, way back in the 50's. Apparently he got bullied really bad, so bad that practically the whole town either knew about it, or was in on it."

Wow. And he thought Dash and his gang were bad enough.

Sam continued, although a hint of sorrow laced into her words, "It got to be too much for him to handle after a while, and now they say his ghost still haunts locker 724, waiting to get his revenge. Apparently some people even theorize that Pointdexter is the _reason_ this town is so swarmed with the supernatural."

Danny's eyes widened in curiosity, "What? No way _that's_ why." If he were being perfectly honest, he'd never really thought about _why_ the ghosts were in Amity Park before, they always just _were._ In fact, he'd never heard anyone talk about why they were there.

All the reporters ever talked about was how much damage was caused week after week. All the parents ever gossiped about was ways to keep their kids safe. The doctors only ever worried about the ones injured in the attacks, and the construction workers only ever complained about how they needed more workers. The police only told everyone how they were always making new protocols. The insurance agents only cared about how their company was doing, and the GIW only thought of how to end ghosts once and for all, never once wondering how it all began.

Sam shrugged, "They say he was so angry at the people of the town for either ignoring him or hurting him all those years, that he cursed the town itself. However, that's all been disproved recently as they've discovered loads of written proof of ghosts here since well before Pointdexter was around."

"And that is the tragic tale of the late Sydney Pointdexter" Tucker said before taking off his hat, "you will be remembered, fellow outcast." He put his hat back on and looked pointedly at Danny, "But dude, seriously, I'd perform an exorcism on that locker before using it if I were you."

"I'm just surprised _you've_ never heard that story before, even more so that your parents haven't brought it up at some point. I mean, I thought they were always talking about that stuff." Sam said.

"Oh they talk _plenty_ about ghosts. Doesn't mean I actually _listen_."

He be even more surprised than Sam if his parents didn't at least _know_ about this supposed urban legend.

The trio kept walking down the hall. More than once they had passed bulletin boards where they may have noticed a "Save the Frogs" poster or two hanging alongside other notices. It was Sam's most recent activist project, to put an end to the studying of real, live frogs in the science classes. She had tried to pitch an idea to the board during the previous week that would have involved using mechanical frogs to do studies with instead, but unsurprisingly it had been rejected. They had claimed it was too expensive and wouldn't give students the same experiences.

They rounded another corner and found yet another one of Sam's posters, but instead of hanging neatly on the board, it was being crinkled between fingers as it appeared a group of jocks had stumbled upon it.

As anyone who knew Samantha Manson could tell you, she didn't take kindly to the sight.

"Put that back!" Sam yelled across the hallway, drawing the group's attention. Their smiles faded and they instead cast annoyed looks her.

"Nah, I think I'll keep it" Dash said.

Tucker and Danny had moved up so they were standing just behind Sam.

Sam's eyes narrowed, "You motherfucker-"

"Sam!" Danny interrupted, placing a hand on her shoulder, "Come on, they're not worth it."

The three of them had gotten into enough trouble with this particular group in the past, and didn't need to be starting anything over a poster.

A series of mocking "aw"s came from the group. "Your freaky little boyfriend come to save you, Manson?" Dash asked. "Good. For a second I thought she was gonna try to use some of her creepy dark magic shit" another jock added, which earned some weak chuckles.

"Leave her alone" Danny warned.

"Or what?" Dash taunted, "Or what , Fenton? You gonna infect us with some freaky ghost disease?"

Danny's mind froze the second he registered those words. _He can't know. He can't possibly know. Why would he say that though?_

"With all your weirdo parents' experiments I wouldn't be surprised if you were some sort of mutant ghost _freak."_

Dash's words bit deep and Danny's breath caught in his throat. So Dash didn't really know, and yet his statement wasn't at all false.

He couldn't come up with any reply and ended up just staring at Dash blankly for a few moments.

"Come on guys," Kwan suddenly said to the rest of the group, "let's go find someone who's actually _cool_ to talk to."

The gang voiced their agreement and started off past the trio. Dash shoved Danny aside as he passed, before crumpling up the poster in his hands and chucking it into the trash.

In the background Danny registered Sam going on an angry rant with some very colorful language as she retrieved the poster out of the trash, and Tucker who was trying to calm her down, saying the poster was mostly fine anyways and that Dash had done far worse before. Danny himself hadn't even moved from where was standing. All he could think about was how Dash was actually _right_ that time, even if he hadn't known it. He didn't even know _what_ he was yet, except for the fact that he fit neither the label of a human nor ghost, yet somehow both at the same time. Dash was right, he was some mutant ghost freak.

The accident had been weeks ago by then. Most of the time he was able to forget about it, but every once in a while something would bring back the memories of it. Whether it was an odd ache in his arm and hand that he had held onto the wall of the portal with, or a random twitch he couldn't control, it made him think about that moment.

Tucker must have noticed how out of it he was because next thing he knew, his friend was right in front of him with a concerned and sympathetic look on his face. "Hey, don't listen to what Dash says, you know that he's wrong."

 _But he's not..._

"You're not a freak, in fact you're probably the most normal person I know."

He tried to act like that comment had actually helped more than hurt.

 _Or so you think._

* * *

It wasn't until the break just before his last hour class that Danny had actually gone to his new locker. Unfortunately it happened to be all the way by the band room, and therefore a good distance away from most of his classes.

The locker itself did happen to look slightly more rusted than the ones around it, but it was likely either a coincidence, or the reason that particular locker number had been chosen to be involved in the tale.

Suddenly Sam walked down the hall, carrying a large box and moving rather quickly.

"Sam? What are you doing?" Danny asked.

"As far as you've heard, nothing. And I'm definitely _not_ sneaking frogs out of the bio lab" Sam replied with a sly grin and carried on down the hallway.

He shook his head and opened his locker. Strangely, there was an old mirror in the back of it, but he ignored it and put a couple of his unneeded notebooks inside.

Something in his peripheral vision moved and he glanced to see Dash walking alone down the adjacent hallway. His thoughts flashed back to earlier that day, the things the jock had said, and even other happenings over the previous years.

There was still three minutes till class started. More than enough time for one little bit of ghostly get-back.

After double checking that no one was around, Danny turned invisible, caught up with Sam, who was still nearby, and took a frog, before heading off in Dash's direction.

* * *

A minute and a half later, nobody who had seen it could say they didn't get a laugh out of it. It wasn't often Dash got shaken up like that, after all.

Danny reappeared by his locker again within moments. The sounds of the chaotic laughter and yelling were still audible. A wide grin appeared on his face and he laughed at the memory of the look on Dash's face.

" _You._ "

Danny whipped around and found a face drained of all color, save for the red eyes, just two feet from him. He backed up instinctively.

"How _dare_ you bully that poor boy and humiliate him in front of all his pals!"

The voice was a bit nasally, but nonetheless sounded chilling with it's added echo. It didn't take the flare of light in his red eyes for Danny to figure out that this was a ghost, but it certainly solidified that fact.

It took a moment to figure out that the "poor boy" the ghost was speaking of was actually Dash. This ghost must've _seriously_ misinterpreted the situation. "Me? Bully _Dash_? I think you've got it wrong. That's was just-"

The ghost interrupted, "Save it buster. I know what's going on here."

Danny decided to try once more, "No, _listen_ , that was just a prank!"

It didn't seem to work as the ghost's glare turned even more malicious. "That's what _they_ all used to say."

He didn't know what or who the ghost was talking about. What he _did_ know however, was that he needed to end this situation fast, or at least do something about it, because currently he was in the middle of a school hallway, in human form, arguing with a ghost. Not the best way to keep a secret identity.

He slid one hand in his backpack, reaching for the thermos he now kept there. As soon as he grabbed the device, he heard a faint voice in the distance, quickly coming nearer. Before the ghost could get another word out, Danny jumped forward and grabbed a hold of him, dragging them both down through the floor and into the school basement.

Once there, Danny changed into his ghost form, not hearing the gasp from the ghost, who was staring wide-eyed at him.

" _You're_ the _halfa!"_ he exclaimed, "Holy sweat socks! And I thought you were just one of those ghost fellas who looked so human they could almost be mistaken for one."

Danny didn't know if he just hadn't heard the ghost right or not, but either way he was confused. "Wait, I'm the _whata?_ " he asked.

"The halfa!" the ghost said like it was common knowledge, "you know, half a boy, half a ghost."

 _Is that really what I am? That doesn't make much sense...yet it makes so much sense at the same time._

"Everyone in the Infinite Realms have been talking about you" the ghost went on, "You have all our powers while you're still alive" he seemingly realized something suddenly and became filled with rage again, "and _you have been using your powers for EVIL?!"_

"C'mon! It was _one_ prank! I wouldn't say that's evil." Danny said.

The ghost didn't seem to agree. " _Bullies_ are the biggest evil I had ever seen during my life. The worst part is that one of them lives inside of _every one of your pals, everyone in Casper High, and EVEN EVERYONE IN AMITY PARK!"_

Suddenly it all made a bit more sense. Why the ghost had shown up after Danny had opened his locker. Why he went after the first form of "bullying" he had seen. His 50's attire and slang. And last of all, that vengeful tone he used when he referenced his own experiences.

Danny may not have been the smartest kid in school, but that didn't mean he could just overlook _that_ many coincidences.

"...you're that kid, aren't you? The one who got bullied by most the school. The one who had locker number 724."

The ghost looked just slightly surprised.

"My _name_ is Sydney Pointdexter. Whenever there is a nerd in need in this school from now on, I'll be the one to give the bullies a taste of their own medicine."

The bell rang shrilly above them, something Danny was only able to hear with the help of his heightened senses.

Hoping that Pointdexter wasn't a strong enough ghost to resist, he pointed the thermos. Somewhat surprisingly, it worked, and the ghost was sucked inside the strange device.

"Believe it or not _pal_ , but we're really not that different."

* * *

That night Danny sneaked downstairs into the lab again when no one was there and released the ghost of Sydney Pointdexter back into the Ghost Zone. After hearing the ghost's words echoing through his head the rest of that day, Danny had come to a decision to try not to use his supernatural abilities to get back at Dash. It was probably best to avoid falling down one of those types of slippery slopes, after all.

* * *

 **A/N: Hello again! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!**

 **I'm honestly surprised I got this up in time on the day I had promised.**

 **Posting date for the next chapter is currently Thursday, March 14th!**

 **UPDATE! New posting date is now Thursday, March 28th! Apologies, it's been a bit of a tough week.**

 **SECOND UPDATE!! So so so sorry I had to push the posting date back just one more week to Thursday April 4th! 99.9% guaranteed it WILL be up on that date, and there won't be anymore delays. Thank you all for your patience.**

 **If it gets to that day/the day after and there is no new chapter, just check back here and I should have a revised date :)**

 **Thank you all so much for reading/favoriting/following/reviewing! "See" ya next time!**


	18. The Cost

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _The Cost_

Summary: It had been an average fight until one of its claws cut a little deeper than usual.

* * *

An odd mixture of blood and ectoplasm dripped sluggishly down his forearm. The sliced flesh stung as oxygen graced the wound. He'd thought he'd had an extra few inches leeway when he dodged the wolf's attack. Turned out those few inches had made all the difference and the beast's claws sank into his right arm.

He took a few breaths, looking over the massive ghost wolf. After its claws had torn through him he'd gotten a quick adrenaline rush and kicked the creature back several feet.

It's jaws were dripping with saliva as it snarled menacingly. Heaps of matted fur covered its back except for in spots that were missing and instead displayed chunks of rotted flesh.

Most of the people in the park had fled the scene about ten minutes earlier, although some of the more daring souls stood their ground and watched the fight from a distance. Unfortunately the ghost was just a bit too strong to capture in the thermos, so the whole thing was turning into a bigger ordeal than Danny had been hoping for.

The wolf ran at him again, more aggressively than before. He knew he had to finish the fight _and quick_ , before it could get any worse. As it got closer he decided to go for the same trick of using its mass against it.

The wolf's claws dug into the grass and dirt and sent chunks of it flying behind it as it ran at him. It's jaws opened up, displaying rows of sharp and decaying teeth. At the last moment Danny flew to the side, more confident that this time he was out of reach of the ghost.

He was successful.

The wolf tumbled through the air for a moment, just long enough for him to get in a shot with the ectogun he still had.

There was a flash as the energy beam made contact with the ghost, and suddenly there wasn't just one big wolf, but a pack of six normal sized ones. They seemed to realize that they were losing now and chose to flee.

Danny pulled out the thermos, wincing as he used his right arm to pull the cap off. Due to the ghosts now being weakened considerably, it was easy for him to capture each of them in the thermos's beam.

It was over.

He didn't stick around a moment longer. It was a miracle that no hunters or GIW had shown up yet, but he wasn't going to take any more chances. He flew invisibly back to the school, and to the bathroom where he'd left his backpack. The whole way there he held his injured arm tightly against his chest.

After landing back inside, checking that there was no one else around, and transforming back, he hastily pulled out whatever first aid supplies he had in his backpack. It was October now. For the past month and a half Danny had been getting into more fights, trying to stop the troublesome ghosts that often made their way into town, from hurting any innocent bystanders. Of course, said fights didn't usually get resolved so quickly and smoothly as he'd like, which is why he'd learned to always keep some sort of first aid supplies in his backpack or in his room. Ghost hunting, after all, was one of those things where one either got good at it fast or dead faster.

The cut on his arm stung, sending pains up through the rest of his arm while he washed the blood off. The blood was more red than green now, but if one looked close enough, the traces of ectoplasm could still be seen residing there, dormant.

During the month and a half he had also taken the name Phantom for his ghost half. Ever since the lunch lady had called him that it had kind of stuck. Plus it was a bit of a play off his real last name, so that made it made it better yet. Like an inside joke, that only one person knew about.

At any rate, the name was better than the horrid one the media had concocted and dubbed him with until just recently. Someone at channel 8 had apparently thought the name _"Inviso-Bill"_ would be funny, and if it were about anyone else, Danny probably would have laughed at it. Fortunately just earlier that week the media had started to catch on and ditch that name.

Amity Park was still mystified by him. The polls claimed about 90 percent of Amity citizens thought he was either the same as every other ghost they saw, or was worse. About 5 percent still didn't even believe he existed at all, kind of understandable as the closest thing there was to a clear picture of him in his ghost form was a black and white blur. The remaining 5 percent actually believed he was different from other ghosts. Perhaps some of them were _too_ naive, after all, the facts that _were_ available, didn't exactly point in his favor.

Danny finished wrapping the bandage securely around his forearm. He paused and pinched an unmarred spot on his arm tightly, hoping it would distract from the sting of the cut. Technically, the cut probably should've gotten stitches, but he had neither the supplies or knowledge on how to do so, and it wasn't like he could go to a doctor or anyone else for that matter. They would ask too many questions. Besides, it would probably heal up within a few days, he thought, so long as he didn't hurt it again and reopen the wound.

When he thought about it, he knew this was the worst he's gotten. Somewhere in the back of his mind he added _yet_ to the end of that statement. But it was worth it. That wolf had been ready to attack a kid in the park earlier, just like the lunch lady could have easily hurt Sam if he hadn't shown up at the right moment.

Maybe he could very well just live life like normal, with these freaky powers bottled up and locked inside him. A secret no one else dead or alive would have ever known about. But the guilt would be crushing, disabling even, if he'd of just watched all these things happen, the only one to know that they could have been prevented.

So maybe he, Sam, and Tucker weren't so close of friends anymore, so what? At least they were alive and safe, or relatively safe, as one is never completely safe in Amity. And so what if Jazz was constantly giving him psychoanalyzing stares, and questioning him, trying to get him to talk to her.

It was all just part of the cost.

* * *

 **A/N: Hello again! I did practically guarantee this chapter would be up by the end of today, so I had to stick to it lol. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this chapter. I think I could have done better with it, but at the same time I think it came out better than the last chapter because that one was...yeesh. Anyways, I hope you guys can enjoy this one.**

 **If any of you have tips/suggestions/comments, feel free to leave them in the reviews. I love to hear from you guys, and I'd also love to make this story the best I can for you.**

 **Next chapter I will try to get up on Thursday, April 18th! Again, if it isn't up by then, you can simply check back here and I should have an updated posting date.**

 **UPDATE! Sorry for both late update and late chapter :( the week has flown by and I have a lot of deadlines coming up. New posting date is Thursday, May 9th**

 **Thanks for reading/favoriting/following/reviewing! "See" ya next time! :)**


	19. What You Want

**Ectoplasmic Secrets**

 _What You Want_

Summary: Tucker Makes a wish.

* * *

"Where were you?" Tucker asks.

He and Danny had been at a Casper football game. Sam had left early due to the flu she was suffering through. Due to the game being against their rival school, it had been hyped up on the campus for two weeks prior. It was no surprise that everyone was pretty disheartened when Casper started to lose bad. At the end of the third quarter they were losing 7 to 45 when suddenly the quarterback started playing really well, and even gained a few points for the team before the end of the quarter.

Then the weird thing happened, and the quarterback full on Hulked-out, big green muscles and all. It was only one of many extra bizarre things that were happening in Amity that week, Tucker thought. There were reports of flying cars, living giant Sayonara Pussycats, and raining cotton candy, and that was just the start of the list.

Tucker hadn't known quite what to make of it, and eventually wrote it off to just more Amity Park weirdness.

 _Speaking of weirdness,_ he thought, staring at the dark circles under his best friend's eyes and the subtly bruised spot by his jaw.

Danny had started to rattle off some long and winded explanation about where he supposedly went for the entire fourth quarter of the game, but Tucker knew it wasn't the real one. It hardly ever was anymore. For one tiny moment he'd actually almost believed Danny this time, but he couldn't be fooled for long. There was some minuscule thing that always gave away his lies, something that no one else would be likely to pick up on besides him, Sam, and maybe Jazz.

"-and then b-because of that it took a long time to get back." Danny finished and looked at Tucker hopefully. _No, not this time, I'm not just gonna go along with it_ , he thought.

"Yeah, alright, then where'd that bruise come from?" Tucker asked. Oddly, his eyes had a bit more trouble finding the mark than minutes earlier when he'd first seen it. _Must be because the last of the daylight's finally gone away._

"What? I don't-"

"Right there" Tucker said, gesturing to the spot.

"Oh...right...that! Yeah, you know I'm super clumsy, and lampposts are kinda hard to see at night, well, unlit lampposts are harder to see at night, because obviously you can see one that's lit up at-"

" _Stop!_ " Tucker yells through the useless rambling. They both already know that that isn't the truth, so why bother pretending?

"Just stop."

Danny is silent and looking at him with a mixture of things. Caution. Worry. Calculating. _Guilt?_

Tucker doesn't care at the moment, whatever it is, he's just tired. It's been a long week already, he doesn't want to deal with this _again_.

"I'm tired of this" he said.

Danny doesn't question it, he doesn't have to. They both know what he means.

The silence stretches on, hanging heavy in the air.

"Can't you just be honest with us again?"

He can hear the "no" without it ever needing to be spoken. Deep down he knew this attempt was probably pointless, but he couldn't help but wish they could just fix whatever was wrong and the three of them could go back to the way things were.

"Just- I wish..."

"Tuck, no-" Danny had started to say.

"...that you would tell me the truth."

Tucker watched as Danny's eyes widened, but was distracted a moment later when a chill sent goosebumps up his arms and spine, and the nearest streetlight flickered out ominously.

Something changed. Shifted. It was something that there wasn't a word in the English language to even describe.

"I went after a ghost."

Tucker's eyes flew back to Danny's now fearful ones.

"Her name is Desiree. She grants wishes. Like the one you just made. She's been in Amity for the past week, causing chaos by granting every wish she hears." Danny said, in a nearly monotone voice.

Tucker's mind was reeling. He knew Danny was telling the truth now, the same way that he knew he wasn't before, but _how? And how is any of this truth actually true?_

"What? What do you mean you went after a ghost? Are you insane?" Tucker asked.

"I mean I went after a ghost. It's kinda what I do now."

"Wha-do you mean-wait are you a ghost hunter too now? What the hell dude?" He's more confused now than possibly he's ever been in his short fourteen year lifespan.

"Sort of. I catch the bad ones and send them back to the Ghost Zone, but I-I al...so a-a-am...am...am...n-no."

Tucker stares in a mixture of shock and bewilderment as his friend struggles with his words. Why was he even opening up about this so suddenly? Then he remembers what Danny said before, that there's a ghost granting wishes... _just like the one you made_.

A ghost was forcing Danny to tell him the truth then? His brain instantly told him to protect his friend, to get the ghost to stop this mind control over him, but then...

A part of himself was glad, no matter how much his brain told him that that was sick. A part of himself needed to hear this _so desperately_ , that it let the ghost have its hold over his friend. He _needed_ to know what was going on. He _needed_ to know that Danny wasn't leaving them just because he thought he was better than them. He _needed_ to know it wasn't his fault.

"...but also, I am one."

"What do you mean you are one? One of _what_?!" Tucker asked anxiously. He couldn't stop himself, not now, not when he finally had the chance to find out.

"One of the g-g-ghosts."

Tucker felt his stomach drop to the floor.

Suddenly he wasn't so sure if he wanted to know any of it at all.

"Not really, but at the same time, yeah. I got into some sort of accident in my parents lab, and I guess it made me half ghost, at least that's what Pointdexter said. So now I'm stuck with all these ghost powers, and they honestly still scare me, but hey, I'm trying to at least use them for something good."

This was more information than he could handle right now. How could he have even _let_ this happen? Danny wasn't ready for him to know any of this stuff, and he still won't be, even now. So how did he think this was a good idea? _Was I that desperate to know the truth? What kind of friend does that make me?_

He needed to fix this, or at least stopping it from making it worse. Tucker thought quickly, coming up with a solution he could only hope would work.

"I wish you don't have to tell me the truth."

Just like that, Danny stopped. His eyes were filled with both relief and fear, but they avoided Tucker's own like the plague. Tucker knew then that he had messed up. _But how was I supposed to know that there was a wish-granting ghost in town?_ He reasoned that it didn't matter much whether it was intentional or not. The damage had already been done. He'd only wanted to mend the tear in their friendship, but had he really only succeeded in shredding it further?

It felt like five minutes before either of them spoke again.

"Danny, I'm-" Tucker finally began.

"No. Whatever you're going to say, just please don't. I can't- I don't wanna know what you..."

Tucker doesn't know what to do, or what to say. So much had just been revealed to him that he could barely process any of it nor the implications of it yet. All he really knew was that it wasn't anything like the truth he'd once imagined he'd hear.

"Desiree, I know you're here."

 _Desiree, that was the ghost that had granted his wishes, right?_

Within moments a ghost materialized that looked like an _actual_ genie in a bottle.

"You can't blame me for letting your little secret slip, Phantom. So he has wished it, so shall it be."

 _Phantom. Wait. What?_

Tucker was beginning to get a headache. He didn't have the energy to even _try_ and understand it anymore.

"Yeah, but I've got one more wish for you." Danny said.

"Ah, so you've given up on trying to stop me, then."

"Not yet, but...I wish that Tucker had never wished for me to tell him the truth."

 _No._

Tucker may not have had time to even begin to understand what Danny had unwillingly told him, but he knew for a fact that Danny could not continue to keep this all hidden. It would tear him apart. It would tear the three of them apart.

"Danny, no! I'm _sorry_ , okay?! It was wrong to force you to tell me but you _can't_ keep all this bottled up and you know it!" Tucker yelled in a last desperate attempt to even have a chance at ever fixing things, but it was too late.

"So you have wished it, so shall it be..."

* * *

 **A/N: So, very different from the episode, but I figured it naturally would be, since that entire episode was based on Tucker, his friendship with Danny, and his repressed jealousy of Danny's ghost powers. Hope you guys enjoyed this one as much as I enjoyed coming up with it and writing it!**

 **Next chapter I will try to get up on Thursday, May 23rd (Which is the day after I graduate high school! :D)**

 **UPDATE!!! Sorry, we've got company this week, so I'm moving the next update to next Thursday, May 30th. (Btw, graduation was yesterday, and it went well!)**

 **UPDATE (again...) Sorry again, trying to get the next chapter up this weekend, so within 2-3 days or so.**

 **Thanks for reading/favoriting/following/reviewing! "See" ya next time! :)**


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